


One Man's Worth

by Gainee__X (geeky__chick)



Series: One Man's Worth [1]
Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Altering timelines, Angst, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Multi, Sexual Content, Time Travel, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:19:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4498524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geeky__chick/pseuds/Gainee__X
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Post X-3/DoFP Compliant) In a race through time, one man must change the course of the future. But what does this stranger known as Bishop really want? Can the X-Men help him or will suspicion tear their world apart? (A Movieverse take on the ultimate RoLo cartoon "One Man's Worth". Don’t look for consistency here, you won’t find it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on the Rolo Realm forever ago and decided I'd transfer it here. This is actually one of my favorite stories that I have ever written and since it's complete, regular updates will definitely be happening. I will also add the one-shot I did to accompany this story at a later date.
> 
> I hope you enjoy my silly take on One Man's Worth!

  
  
  
  
**Another Time, Another Place**  
  
  
The sleek, metallic halls were home to him, calling to the need inside of him to constantly seek protection. It was something like a home, a den of man-made metals. Inside there was safety, hope, and all those things the aging, weary priests insisted on screaming to the fiery heavens.  
  
“We don’t have much time,” said his companion as they dashed down the halls. “They’ll discover us at any moment.”  
  
“They won’t break the lines,” rumbled the younger of the pair.   
  
A worn keypad was manipulated by the genius beside him and the young companion’s heart began to pound within his breast. His entire life he had fought for a cause, even before he understood what that cause might be. They had taught him tolerance in the face of bigotry, love in the wake of devastation, peace in a lifetime of war.  
  
“Father!”  
  
The smaller man turned from his watchful post beside the enormous machine. It dwarfed anything in the room, making even the large young man feel miniscule and unworthy. His father, however, still seemed larger than life. Perhaps it was that way for all children, even as they grew into adulthood.  
  
There was always something so comforting, strengthening about his father’s presence. He would have given good money to have him along on this perilous and insane trip. It was right up Father’s alley, really.  
  
But there was only enough in the machine for one. He had to do this alone or not at all. He had been training for this moment ten years. Failure was not an option, not with so much at stake. If it killed him, he would succeed.  
  
“Hey, kid,” his father said, voice tight. “You ready?”  
  
“No,” he shook his head with a small smile. “But I will go.”  
  
“I know,” Father said warmly, reaching out to shake his hand. “You’ll make us all proud.”  
  
There was something more than pride in Father’s words. Hope, which always seemed just a little alien from his voice, shone through now. The young man took the bracelet from his companion, nodding when the elder explained several things about this monumental trip.  
  
Inside this room, where the machine had been created through the order of the men they fought, was the barest hint of heroism and bravery. Whatever happened, these two would go on to tell generations about one man’s sacrifice.   
  
Of course, he didn’t plan on losing anything, no matter what Father and Mother tried to tell him. He could be as just as damn stubborn as they were.  
  
“I’ll tell the girls you said goodbye,” Father grinned, pulling his son closer for a quick, masculine embrace.  
  
“Tell them I love them,” he whispered, clinging to his father for a moment longer than he needed to.  
  
“Be careful, son.”  
  
“Goodbye, Father.”  
  
“Go, now!” Forge ordered.  
  
“GO!” Father hollered a moment later. Scraping of metal on metal and the whine of machinery rang through the metallic corridor. They had been discovered. Time, it would seem, was up.  
  
Father shoved him in the general direction of the contraption as he grabbed the laser-gun from its holster. As he ran toward the machine, he fired several rounds, providing cover for his father until the last possible moment.  
  
“Go, son!” Father shouted over the din of battle, turning to watch his son with sorrow in his eyes. “GO!”  
  
Bishop fired two last shots, capturing the image of his father in his mind before closing his eyes and stepping into the machine. Sound faded into a dull, robotic murmur as his body fought to stay in one piece while being ripped through time.  
  
He knew, without his father saying, that he would never see him again.  
  
~**~  
  
**The Here and Now**  
  
Ororo Munroe stomped through the halls of Xavier’s Institute for Higher Learning with thunder rolling in her wake. In the two months since she had taken over the position of Headmistress at the exclusive mutant school, everything seemed to collapse the moment her back was turned.  
  
Her companions, as usual, were of little help. Henry McCoy, whom had resigned from his post as Secretary of Mutant Affairs to rejoin the team in the battle with Magneto and Phoenix, declined an offer to become a U.N. Ambassador. He lived back at the school now, teaching several courses while making nice with the Wolverine.  
  
Wolverine. Ororo snarled to herself. Though she was happy to have the help during the start of the school year, the man was beginning to make an ass out of himself. Not a day went by when he wasn’t banging on her office door with a list of problems she needed to fix  _now_.   
  
She often entertained ideas of tossing his adamantium-laced body into the lake and bringing down the Artic to Westchester.  
  
If her companions were not driving her quickly up the wall, her new generation of X-Men was testing the very limits of her self-control.   
  
Bobby Drake, Katherine Pryde, and Piotr Rasputin had been officially inducted after their display of power at Alcatraz. Now, it seemed, they believed they needed to guidance, no adult to watch over them on missions. That was swiftly going to come to an end if Ororo had to strip them all of their recently acquired positions.  
  
And she did not even want to get started on Marie. That girl had been nothing but a thorn in her side since returning to the mansion cured of mutation. It was a constant fight between both Storm and Wolverine as to whether or not the girl could stay on at the mansion. Ororo felt that she could return to her family while Logan viciously fought back that they were supposed to be teaching tolerance.  
  
Storm argued that they needed the space; Logan shouted that they still had a wing they could open up if the need arose.  
  
In two months, they were still stalemated.  
  
Ororo slammed into her office, kicking her door closed as she rounded on Hank and Logan. Both men were lounging casually in her office, chatting amicably as they awaited her arrival to start the daily staff meeting. Ororo on the other hand, was covered with frog intestines.  
  
“Henry. Peter. McCoy.” Each word had a deliberate threat and punctuated by a massive clap of thunder.  
  
“Good Lord, Storm, whatever happened?” Henry stood as though to aid her.   
  
Ororo put a hand up to silence him, trying in vain to control her temper. With her free hand, she gestured to the bloody green mess covering her new gray suit.  
  
“This is what happens when you leave supplies out in a school filled with teenagers,” she explained as though speaking to an infant. “Go. Clean. It. Up. Now.”  
  
Hank blinked at her for several moments, unable to speak. He must have caught the murder in her eyes, for he excused himself a moment later.   
  
Ororo shrugged out of her jacket, ignoring Wolverine’s presence and tossed the ruined material into a corner of the expansive room. She could feel his eyes on her back as she turned on him, unbuttoning her blouse as she stepped into the washroom where she kept a spare change of clothes.  
  
“You wanna talk about it?”  
  
“No,” she snapped from the bathroom, throwing her shirt out into the office.  
  
“Ok.” He refused to press, as always. “If yer gonna striptease, at least do it where I can see.”  
  
Ororo ducked her head into the office and glared at him for all she was worth. The Wolverine gave her a broad grin around his cigar, winking playfully. She had to pull her head back into the bathroom before she laughed. It was irritating that he kept doing that.  
  
Though she was often annoyed with him – not to mention everyone else lately – a part of her was thrilled that he opted to halt his wandering ways. Staying on with the X-Men, she felt, was a selfish move on his part. But he tried, every day, to make his place here among them. Their blue, furry friend, she felt, was an essential part to his integration.   
  
After pulling on faded Xavier sweats and a matching hoodie, she came back into the office. Instead of taking her usual place behind her departed mentor’s desk, Ororo plopped onto the sofa beside Logan.  
  
“You look like you need a drink.” He observed almost immediately.  
  
With her eyes closed, Ororo smiled swiftly. “I need several of them as well as a big-biceped Latin lover named Julio to feed me grapes and rub my feet.”  
  
When Logan did not respond, she opened her eyes, head resting against the back of the sofa. Logan was staring at her as though she’d grown another head. Unable to contain it, she chuckled slightly, feeling a little better about her day.  
  
Losing Scott and Jean had been difficult for her. In all of her life, she had never had siblings until coming to Xavier’s School. The young weather witch had found an instant family in Scott, Jean, and darling Henry. They had shared in everything. To have that so horribly taken away was cruelty on hellacious levels.  
  
But nothing compared to losing Charles. Her mentor, father, friend…Charles had taken her from the idolatry of the tribes in southern Kenya and given her purpose, a mission. That mission got her out of bed every morning, even in the beginning when even breathing caused her heart to ache.   
  
It still hurt, but every day that hurt bled away a little more. She put on a brave face for the children and her colleagues. Somehow she was sure that neither Hank nor Logan completely believed it. Hank especially knew what her family meant to her. Family, in her mind, was everything.  
  
While she was lost in her thoughts, Logan had sat up, looking around in that eerie manner he had that she likened to a skittish deer. She could hear him sniffing the air and was surprised when he stood, moving in front of her as though to protect her.  
  
“Logan?”  
  
“Somethin’ ain’t right in here,” he replied softly. “Shh.”  
  
Clamping her mouth shut at his prompting, Ororo moved to stand as well, staying behind the over-alert cover her friend provided.  
  
“Get down!”  
  
He barely gave her time to gasp in shock. Logan tackled her to the sofa, toppling it so they could use it for cover. He cradled her in his arms, holding her head down as though he expected to absorb some kind of blow.  
  
A beat later, terrible noise flooded the room. It sounded as though the very air were fighting, battling over which particular atom belonged in each individual space. The furious molecules suddenly restricted breath. Both mutants fought to breathe. Ororo clung to her teammate as unnatural winds kicked up, threatening to sweep them both away.  
  
_Snikt!_  She heard his claws extend and watched him bury the lethal adamantium into the polished floorboards. He used the extensions of his body to hold them both in place as papers and furniture whipped around the room.  
  
“Are you doing that?” He shouted over the roar.  
  
“No! It is not natural!” She replied, trembling in his embrace.  
  
And then, as quickly as it had started, the winds ceased. Papers rustled to the floor and glass shattered as it fell from the suddenly still air.   
  
Wind tousled and confused, Logan retracted his claws, keeping Ororo behind him as he stood. She peered over his broad shoulders, startled to find a full-grown man standing in the very center of her office.  
  
His back was facing them, his towering frame somewhat enhanced by the decimated room. He wore clothing of worn black leather; his long dark hair tossed over one shoulder. Ororo gripped Logan’s arm, trying to keep him calm.  
  
The stranger turned then, revealing a determined young face and soulful obsidian eyes. In his hands was a contraption that could have been a weapon, but unlike anything she had ever seen.  
  
“Who are ya? And what the fuck are you doin’ in here?” Logan demanded, clenching his hands into fists.  
  
As if shocked by the words, the stranger did not speak. He looked from one to the other, sizing them up even as Ororo stood to her full height and met his dark gaze.  
  
“Start talkin’, bub,” Logan growled. “While ya still can.”  
  
“I would listen to him,” Ororo chimed in. “He has a short fuse.”  
  
“I’m Bishop,” the man said in a quiet tone. “I’m from the future.”  
  
Ororo felt her eyebrows fly into her hairline as Logan turned his head to meet her eyes. She shrugged slightly, squeezing his arm to let him know she was just as confused. Her friend slowly released six weapons from their hiding place, raising them just as deliberately.  
  
“Put it away, Wolverine,” Bishop said pointedly. “You might not believe me, but I’m not leaving until my mission is done. Call the others. There’s something you all need to hear.”  
  
~**~  
  
  
From his place in the underground War Room, Logan watched the stranger with guarded eyes. There was something familiar about this kid. Not in his features or his manner, but in the scent. Something…comforting that he couldn’t quite place.  
  
The man was really just a boy, maybe a little older than Pete and Bobby. But there was a hardened look to this pup, as though he’d lived a life that he shouldn’t have. His face was marred by a long “M” shaped tattoo that covered his right eye.  
  
He stared straight ahead while Storm called the others into the X-Men’s meeting hall. Occasionally, though, Logan caught the youngster glancing at him or Storm. There was something like recognition in his gaze, but of what Logan couldn’t begin to fathom.  
  
From his gear, Logan pegged him as a warrior. His stance was almost predatory, his eyes obviously trained to take in anything and everything. This was a man that fought for a living.  
  
“This man, who claims his name is Bishop, just appeared in my office,” Storm was saying imperiously to the assembled group. “He claims to be from the future.”  
  
“I don’t  _claim_  anything,” Bishop fired back. “I am from the future.”  
  
“I fear you must prove that, my boy,” Hank cut in, his voice still typically cheerful. “Claims that one is from or has knowledge of the future are usually not so easily believed.”  
  
“I can’t say too much or I might change history in a way that wouldn’t be in our favor,” Bishop said cautiously. “How would you like me to prove it?”  
  
“What are next week’s lottery numbers?” Logan asked without missing a beat.  
  
“Wolverine.” Storm shook her head slightly. He grinned. She rolled her eyes.  
  
“Look, I don’t have time to sit here trying to prove something to you,” Bishop sighed.   
  
One look around the table told both Bishop and Wolverine that he wasn’t going to have any time to do what he came for until they were convinced that he happened to be from the future. Storm already looked more than suspicious while Hank genuinely curious.  
  
The younger X-Men just seemed confused.  
  
“Ok,” Bishop gave in. “Fine. What’s today’s date?”  
  
Ororo recited it for him quickly. The man’s eyes widened slightly; Logan could almost see him calculating something in his head before he replied.  
  
“That’s the day…” The dark man chuckled. “Ok, Storm?”  
  
She raised a solitary white brow in answer.   
  
“You got frog intestines spilled all over you because two students – Max and Emily – blew up Dr. McCoy’s case for his Biology class.”  
  
“Any spy could have seen that just an hour ago.” She countered, narrowing her eyes.  
  
“Ok,” he continued. “In about a minute, the mansion’s main line will ring. It’ll be Nightcrawler calling for Rogue. After that phone call, she’ll be very upset. She will demand to be taken to Germany for several weeks.”  
  
As if on cue, the dull ring of the mansion’s telephone line rang throughout the underground chamber. Logan grabbed the receiver from the wall, barking the greeting Ororo insisted they all use.  
  
“Yeah,” he said upon hearing Kurt’s audibly distraught tone. “I’ll get her.”  
  
He waited until Rogue had picked up her end of the phone, cradling the receiver carefully. When he faced Bishop again, he caught a moment of complete vulnerability in the man’s ebony eyes. He had left something – or someone – he cared about a great deal to come back here.  
  
Logan went with his gut. “I believe him.”  
  
“Logan,” Ororo sighed. “This is impossible.”  
  
“Not really,” Bishop said, still looking at Wolverine. “In fact, Dr. McCoy here already knows several people working on the theory.”  
  
Hank’s face broke into an immediate grin. “Forge? He’ll…”  
  
Bishop smirked, putting a single finger to his lips as though telling Hank to keep his mouth shut about certain things. Hank, for his part, closed his mouth quickly while looking ready to burst from the inside out.  
  
“Let us suspend all reality for a moment and say I believe you,” Storm said coldly. “What is this mission so important that one must time-travel to complete it?”  
  
For several seconds, Bishop did not speak. He did, however, turn to face the X-Men’s leader all traces of his vulnerability gone. “To stop a war we’ve been fighting since I was five years old.”  
  
“What war?” Logan questioned.   
  
“The one that gave me this,” he indicated to the scar on his face. “It’s the brand of a mutant, we all had to get them when I was a kid. The Rebellion broke out shortly after. We’ve been fighting ever since.”  
  
“You have come back to prevent the war from happening altogether?” Hank asked, looking hard at the young man.  
  
“Yeah,” Bishop said, determination taking over his face again. “It’s torn North America apart, thousands have been killed, on both sides.”  
  
They sat for a moment in utter silence. Logan felt, for the first time, that this is what Xavier had been fighting to prevent. A war on that magnitude was something no one needed to be part of. Was that what lie ahead for them? Death and destruction the likes of which the world had never seen?  
  
“There was a catalyst around this time, or that’s what our research has determined,” Bishop continued a moment later. “I’ve come back to ensure it doesn’t happen.”  
  
“How do we know it won’t make things worse?” Bobby interrupted for the first time. “You could just wipe out all mutants or something.”  
  
Bishop stood slowly to his full, massive height. He glared at the young X-Man, his eyes nearly glowing as he did so.   
  
“Boy,” he growled insultingly. “I left my parents -- _my family_  -- behind to complete this mission. I won’t see them again. Hell, by the end of this I may not exist. I’m sure. I’m damn sure.”  
  
Bobby swallowed hard and looked back down at the table.  
  
Ororo cut in again smoothly. “Bishop? What is this catalyst?”  
  
For a long, tense moment, the man did not speak. When he did, it was with conviction and a hint of sorrow.  
  
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”


	2. Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bishop warns the X-Men of an upcoming battle, but an injury during the fight makes things all too clear for Henry McCoy.

**Chapter Two: Enemies**

  
  
  
Against the gently rolling hills that bled into the thick, untamed forest, there was the image of peace and family in this place. A scion of knowledge, of tolerance, of understanding the likes of which no human had provided before and likely never would again. Charles Xavier had died, yes, but his dream lived on.  
  
The dark man watched from his high window as children laughed and played in the warm glow of dusk. Such things were alien to him. Never in his life had he played with such abandon, such security. Those things were tales of the past, fairy stories told to soothe away the fears when the concussion of explosives shattered the night and friends failed to come home.  
  
Bishop placed a hand on the cool pane, closing his eyes briefly to relish the strange sound of carefree laughter. Football. He had never seen the game played this way before. It was as most things in his life: just another story from a better past.  
  
Mother had taught him about things like this. She drilled into his head from an early age, before and during the days of war, how civilization had once operated. Though she had fought for mutant rights her entire life, she was not jaded by it. She refused to be. Her smile and warmth were ever present, creating this thing called hope deep inside his soul.  
  
Father had taught him determination to fight; Mother taught him what he was fighting for.  
  
His sister would have loved to see this. Bishop wished he could capture the image for her; to show his cynical sibling that everything they had been told was reality. He could almost imagine them here as children, playing in the grass as carefree children were supposed to.   
  
He missed them. Of all the things he could possibly wish for, he wanted to see his beloved family again. Bishop was not a fool. He knew, even at the tender age of fifteen when they began training him for this mission, that the undertaking would ever alter his world.   
  
It would take them from him. Forever.  
  
“ _Mother_.” He whispered to the quiet, envisioning her in his mind as he always saw her. Serene, beautiful, deadly.   
  
There was much to do now, he mused opening his eyes once more to the frolicsome children out of doors. Many seeming catalysts existed in this time and he had to explore each and every one of them to determine the cause of the war. The first, he knew, would happen in mere moments.  
  
Collecting his plasma gun, Bishop poured some steel into his spine and forced himself to leave the window. Battle was on the horizon, which is why this day was selected, so his sentimentality would have to wait. The deaths of Xavier, Phoenix, and Cyclops had been dismissed at this catalyst when Storm took up the torch to lead the legendary X-Men.  
  
She had no idea what that one impulsive decision had done. He knew. He could never tell her.  
  
Striding from the bedroom he’d been given after several hours of shouted, angry words between Wolverine and Storm, he paused to listen for them. No matter what that uncanny duo did, they did it loudly. Some things never changed.  
  
It took only seconds for the dulcet tones of Storm to reach his ears. She was just down the hall, moving closer with every step. Bishop faded into the shadows of a nearby alcove to listen, curious when his name immediately crossed her lips as she drifted into earshot.  
  
“Bishop is a liability, Logan,” she was saying in that imperious tone. “We shouldn’t have him anywhere near the children.”  
  
“What should we do with him?” Logan’s deep baritone rumbled in reply. “Give him a hearty slap on the back and show him the door?”  
  
“Why, Wolverine,” Storm replied with obvious mocking. “That is the most intelligent thing I have ever heard leave your lips.”  
  
“He’s from the flamin’ future, Storm,” Wolverine snarled back.   
  
“So he claims,” she responded heatedly. “There are special places for people such as he. Bellevue immediately springs to mind.”  
  
“You think the kid needs a padded cell?”  
  
“I think he is a gun-toting psychopath.”  
  
Bishop winced, a small smile curving his lips. Yes, she was definitely the woman he remembered. The woman had the sharpest tongue on the planet. He’d heard stories of how she could cow an entire regiment with one scornful comment.  
  
“Really?” Logan questioned with laughter in his voice as they came around the corner. “You hear that, Bishop?”  
  
He did not have to see her face to know there was murder reflected in her dark eyes. Wolverine had the mysterious knack for getting under her skin. She would have expected him to warn her that the man they spoke of was within sniffing range.  
  
Bishop was relatively sure that was a deliberate mistake on the other man’s part.  
  
Stepping from the shadows, emotions quickly covered, Bishop shouldered his plasma rifle and inhaled deeply. “You should suit up.”  
  
“Oh?” Storm crossed her arms over her chest, a defensive move. “And why is that?”  
  
“Get the kids into the underground levels, seal off the entrances into the tunnels.” Bishop ordered, moving past her.  
  
“Trouble?” Wolverine questioned, easily falling into step beside him.  
  
“You have no idea.”  
  
~**~  
  
  
Storm adjusted the collar of her leather uniform, ensuring that Marie had all of the instructions needed to care for the children. She hated taking anything like this on faith, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. That went doubly for anything having to do with the children entrusted to her care.  
  
Once the lower levels were sealed with her X-Man passcode, Storm moved quickly upstairs. This entire situation set her teeth on edge. In her orderly, structured world things like time travel and strangers from the future were confined to the safety of paperbacks and film. Coming face to face with the impossible tweaked her nose slightly.  
  
She did not believe this young man, at least not yet. Charles had always taught her to question herself and her perceptions. Personality, he told her, colored every viewpoint of everything in the world. It was why so many cultures and races could not get along for longer than a few years without someone’s opinion offending another.  
  
When she reached the upper levels, Beast greeted her with a warm smile. She returned the gesture wanly, wanting to get this terrible charade over with. Whatever Bishop was certain would happen today was likely a fluke or just a ploy to make them believe him.  
  
If she found out he had been wasting her valuable time, he would need several doctors and miles of duct tape to put his mangled body back together.  
  
“Nothin’ yet,” Logan reported as he sauntered in from outdoors, where he’d been doing a preliminary smell-check.  
  
Bishop stood in the exact center of the posh foyer, his hands griping the odd weapon with white knuckles. There was no expression on his face as he stared straight ahead, but determination and righteousness seemed to radiate from him.   
  
He was a handsome man, she admitted to herself. Even the horrible mark of a mutant over his eye was borne proudly, as though he refused to believe that mark was something to be ashamed of. For that Ororo could give him a slight nod of respect. He accepted what he was without apology or remorse.  
  
During her long, silent inspection of him, the man had met her gaze. Ororo felt something swell between them, but his stubborn refusal to let anything show put a stop to it. His head tilted just slightly to the side.  
  
“Duck.”  
  
At Bishop’s single word, Ororo raised a brow. Wolverine moved to her, forcing her head down and covering her with his body. Annoyed, Storm opened her mouth to protest, hating the way he continually treated her as though she were made of precious crystal.  
  
A heartbeat later, she was happy he had done so. Glass and splintered wood flew with bullet speed through the otherwise empty foyer. Bishop had not so much as flinched while the X-Men covered one another, the spray of what had once been the foyer door washing over him almost negligently.  
  
Shadowcat darted forward, griping the dark stranger and phasing him through the floor a beat before a laser sizzled through the air. Had he not been removed from that place, he would have taken the blast directly to the back.  
  
When the girl and her charge reappeared, he rolled his eyes. “I needed that laser charge, Kitten.”  
  
“Well,” Wolverine growled as his claws escaped their confinement. “I think our new friends have a few more for you.”  
  
Bishop shrugged his arm from Kitty’s while raising his gun. “Whatever you do, don’t get dead.”  
  
And then he was gone.  
  
In a flurry of black leather and long, braided hair Bishop all but flew through the foyer’s decimated front door with the primeval grace of a predator. Electronic charges from his futuristic weaponry sang all around them as the X-Men scrambled to find their footing.  
  
“Fan out!” Storm commanded her team. “Give Bishop cover, before he gets himself killed.”  
  
They filed through the door together, moving as one sinuous unit. Storm leapt for the skies, the heavens crackling around her at their mistress’ command. She saw Beast and Wolverine flanking their unusual companion with Iceman, Shadowcat, and metallic Colossus bringing in the rear.  
  
“Brotherhood!” Wolverine shouted as they met the remains of Magneto’s ill-fated army.  
  
Storm launched herself higher, bringing down torrential rain and freezing winds upon the new battlefield. Mutants she could not recognize nor name flooded the expansive lawns of Xavier’s school, at least a dozen that she could see outright.  
  
Her team fell on them with the force of a tsunami. They were well trained and used each other’s abilities flawlessly. Even Bishop fell into the formation, his laser weapon firing repeatedly.  
  
She noticed, however, when several of them moved to counter him. Without pausing to think, Storm threw herself toward the ground, hovering just above Bishop’s head. A careless flick of her wrist, directing the screaming winds, tossed the mutant rebels across the lawns where they could not harm an X-Man.  
  
To her surprise, Bishop glanced up at her almost causally. “That’s it?”  
  
Suddenly irritated, Storm shook her head. “What did you expect? ‘Whirlwind from the heavens, engulf these misguided souls’?”  
  
He had the audacity to smirk at her.  
  
“It’s got a ring to it, Storm,” Wolverine tossed over his shoulder as he engaged a massive youth in hand-to-hand combat.  
  
“So does “Holy bovine, Batman” but I don’t hear you shouting that!”  
  
“Can we finish this later?” Iceman shouted from behind them. He drifted up toward Storm on his now patented iceslide. “What the hell do these guys want?”  
  
All eyes seemed to turn to Bishop. Storm watched him grit his teeth, but his eyes were on her alone.  
  
“They want the kid.” He said almost grudgingly. “Leech.”  
  
“Jimmy,” Storm and Iceman said in unison.  
  
She flipped her body backward, catching herself gracefully on the winds while Bobby rushed into the fray. Lightning tore the heavens apart, streaking onto the lawn as it attempted to strike at her opponents.   
  
The other X-Men defended their home with the expertise borne of months in grueling training. She trusted them to take care of the home, of the children as well as she could. Launching herself further into the air, she brought down the chill of the Arctic, focusing the bitter cold on their advancing opponents.  
  
From her position above, she was able to view the entire battle, calling out commands via the interlinked comm. badges each X-Man wore. She controlled the field from aloft, creating frozen hell conditions for their enemies. The X-Men were trained to fight in these conditions for a reason.  
  
“Avalanche! Get that bitch out of the sky!”  
  
At the unfamiliar call, Storm turned toward the sound. Violent shockwaves rippled the air, her winds crying out in something akin to pain at the unnatural invasion. She thrust her arms out to protect herself as the very air around her shivered.  
  
~**~  
  
  
Hearing the crude command from behind enemy lines, Logan immediately ceased fighting. Something in that tone made his blood run cold in his veins. They may not have gotten along like best friends, but she was his teammate.   
  
He slammed an adamantium fist into the face of some young pup attempting to take him down, his eyes scanning the turbulent skies for signs of the X-Men’s leader. Iceman and Colossus were taking down a duo of their own. Shadowcat was playing Ultimate Hide and Seek with several others too stupid to realize they had a snowball’s chance in hell at actually catching her.   
  
Angel swooped in from whatever rock he’d been hiding under, collecting an opponent and dropping him sharply into the frigid lake. Beast grabbed the boy’s hand, hitching a ride across enemy lines where his rough, animalistic fighting style quickly broke their lines. Their bastardized version of a Fastball Special worked as flawlessly here as it did in the Danger Room.  
  
What he could not find, however, was Storm or Bishop.  
  
“WOLVERINE!”  
  
At the younger mutant’s fateful call, Logan whipped around in time to see Storm freefalling from the sky.   
  
“STORM!”  
  
His cry rent the night, pausing most of the action as he tore across the sopping earth. He knew, before he started moving, that he would be too late to reach her. Her seemingly fragile form slammed into the rain-soaked earth, muddying her snow-white hair as she sank into the squashy grass.  
  
Screaming with preternatural rage, Wolverine cut down anything in his path, his eyes focused on nothing but the frail form lying still in the thick mud. Someone called his name; a laser blast singed his shoulder. None of it mattered.  
  
When he reached the unmoving body of Storm, he retracted his lethal claws and sank to his knees. Heedless to any injuries she might have sustained, he gathered her into his arms, shaking her none too gently.  
  
“Wake up, woman,” he demanded as the X-Men closed in around them. “Come on, darlin’.”  
  
“How is she?” Angel questioned as he hovered above.  
  
Wolverine failed to respond as he brushed the dirty white locks from her already bruising face. Her flesh was cold under his fingers, body still lifeless in his arms. He leaned down, placing his ear over her mouth to listen for breathing.  
  
“I hope,” came a raspy voice from the semi-comatose woman. “Someone hit that little bastard.”  
  
“He’s down,” said Kitty with a menacing snarl. “For a week or two.”  
  
Relief flooded Wolverine’s system. He stood, cradling her protectively to his chest. She melted in his arms, allowing him to carry her back toward the mansion. The others would clean up the mess. He would talk to Bishop about this entire thing later.  
  
For now, he had to take care of their resident weather witch.  
  
~**~  
  
Beast watched Wolverine carry Storm back into the mansion. She would require medical attention, to be certain, but something else weighed heavily on his mind. His eyes turned from the limp woman and her knight protector to the lone wolf standing in the wake of battle.  
  
The battle had been swift, the enemy taken by surprise by the X-Men’s heightened state of readiness. Had Bishop not warned them, it could have ended far worse than it had.   
  
Demoralized, the Brotherhood fled, carrying their wounded as fast as they could from the hallowed ground of Xavier’s School. Beast watched them leave, quietly posting three X-Men on watch until they were certain the coast was clear to bring the children out of the lower levels. Jimmy was safe, for now. Ororo had correctly assumed that someone would come for him. Henry doubted this would be the last attempt on the boy’s life.  
  
All of this was pushed to the side as he came to stand beside the stoic Bishop. Though he did not know if he believed the man’s claims of knowledge from the future, he did feel a strange kinship with him. He reminded Beast of someone, though whom was elusive.  
  
There was, however, the interesting development Beast had noticed during Storm’s dreadful fall. Bishop had halted in his tracks, horror overcoming the usually emotionless features. Beast had paused to take in this strange development and noticed something even more out of place.  
  
For several seconds during that deadly plummet, Bishop had faded. It reminded the furry blue mutant of Shadowcat’s unique phasing ability. Disquiet passed over Hank’s heart as Bishop stared at his own fading form. Something more was happening here. Bishop was not disclosing all of the important information.  
  
Yet, seconds later, the man snapped back into full focus. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Beast decided he was going to get to the bottom of this.  
  
“Bishop?” He questioned, drawing the man’s attention.  
  
“What?” The younger man replied testily.  
  
“Would you like to explain that state of flux a few moments past?”  
  
Bishop turned unfathomable eyes to the mutant scientist. “You already know the answer, Beast.”  
  
The indigo man frowned, glancing toward the sky as though he expected the knowledge to fall into his lap. It was a futile gesture, he believed, but a wholly human one.   
  
Bishop had gone into temporal flux as something was changed in the course of history. Had the Brotherhood succeeded this day? Was Jimmy killed in his timeline? Why would that have affected the man?  
  
He paused. Jimmy was not the key here, he realized. It was only at Storm’s injury that he began to fade. Beast inhaled sharply.  
  
“Oh my stars and garters.”  
  
“Yeah.” Bishop said quietly. “Welcome to my world.”  
  
~**~  
  
 **New York City, New York**  
  
Injured and severely lacking conviction, the Brotherhood drifted into their apartment building where they set up headquarters, several moaning as they nursed various wounds. Going up against the X-Men was risky, but the surprise attack should have given them something in the way of an advantage.  
  
Instead, they seemed to be awaiting the attack, flooding their manicured lawns like a force of nature. They were even better trained than at the fiasco they referred to as Alcatraz. When the Phoenix and Magneto had been destroyed, the Brotherhood banded together.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
Their leader came from the rickety staircase, surveying his mutant fighters with a swift glance. Arclight glared at him, laying the unconscious Avalanche on the tattered sofa. He was going to be out for a while and having such a powerful ally down for the count always got her panties in a bunch.  
  
“They were waiting for us.”  
  
“Impossible.” He countered her, gray-blue eyes afire with conviction.  
  
“Yeah?” Arclight shot back. “They were all in uniform, damn it. Avalanche almost died!”  
  
“Perhaps you should be more selective of your lovers, my dear, if he is to be beaten by these uncouth whelps.”  
  
She glared at him, coming across the room to stand toe to toe, ignoring the shocked murmuring of the mutants surrounding them. Since Callisto’s untimely death at the hands of that weather bitch, it was no secret that Arclight had an ulterior motive. She wanted Storm’s blood, at any cost, for taking her friend.  
  
“They were expecting us,” she said slowly, menacingly. “Someone told them.”  
  
“Only those that went on the mission were given prior knowledge,” he responded, looking around carefully. “Psylocke?”  
  
The Asian beauty moved from behind their leader, her long violet hair slung over one slender shoulder. She looked through the entire team, letting her mind wash over each and every one of them. She delved inside, stealing secrets and discovering lies until no one could hide any longer.  
  
“It was no one here,” the clipped British accent sounded odd from her olive lips. “They are loyal to you, to the Cause.”  
  
“Good,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back.  
  
“There is someone new at the school, though,” she continued. “A dark man with a tattoo above his eye.”  
  
“Yes,” Arclight cut in. “Bishop by name.”  
  
“Bishop?” He shook his head, pondering this new development. “I don’t recall that name.”  
  
“We should investigate. Maybe he’s some kind of psychic that predicted the attack.” Arclight sighed, rubbing her temples with the fingertips of one hand.  
  
“Yes, do so,” their leader commanded. “I want to know everything there is to know about this Bishop.”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
The reconnaissance team split from the main body immediately, fading from the room as though they had never been there at all. Arclight watched their leader smile knowingly, fondly at his beloved disciples.  
  
“You did well, in the face of such a foe.”  
  
“Thank you, Magneto,” Arclight replied with a small smile.   
  
He nodded to them, reaching out to touch Psylocke’s plump cheek as though stroking a beloved feline. The girl preened into the touch as Magneto’s mutation began to hum. He brought several vials to his hands via the metallic bands sealing the thick fluid inside. The mutant held the fragile glass up to the light, a slow, sinister smile curving his aging mouth.  
  
“When the time comes,” he announced softly. “We will be ready for them.”  
  
  
~**~  
  
 **The not too distant future…**  
  
  
The child woke in the dead of night, panting and sweating as he ran from the dreams that threatened to consume him. He kicked his blankets off, taking his beloved, ratty teddy bear in his arms and popping his thumb into his mouth.  
  
Mother and Father were speaking in low tones in the next room, comforting him with their mere presence. He tiptoed out of his room and down the hall. Neither of the questioned his wakeful state as he climbed eagerly into Mother’s lap.  
  
Father reached over to touch his head in that paternal familiarity as Mother continued speaking.  
  
“It has begun, then?” She asked of Father softly, her thumb idly stroking Lucas’ chubby cheek lovingly.  
  
He leaned into her touch, letting it carry away all of his worries and the remnants of his terrible dreams. At least here, with them holding him, nothing was too horrible that it couldn’t be overcome. His parents were superheroes, after all.  
  
“Yeah, it’s startin’,” Father replied to Mother. “I want you two to head for Scotland.”  
  
“No…” Mother began.  
  
“Hole up at Muir Island, at least until the worst is over. Moira and Sean can protect you.”  
  
“And who, tough guy, is going to protect  _you_?”  
  
Lucas sucked more steadily on the digit between his lips. Were they going away? Had the bad men come to take them? Father always said if the bad men came, they might get separated. But he shouldn’t worry, Father said, he would always find them. No matter what.  
  
Still…he didn’t want to leave Father or Mother.  
  
“I don’t need protectin’.” Father told Mother. “You need to get Luke out of here. He’s our job right now.”  
  
“You think it’s best for us to abandon his father?”  
  
“Watch what you’re saying!” He snapped, indicating to Lucas’ half-asleep form in Mother’s arms.   
  
“I am not leaving you here,” Mother continued, cuddling her son closer. “We will send our child to Moira. He will be safe there.”  
  
“No.” Lucas whimpered, clinging to Mother. “Don’t send me away, Mother.”  
  
“Jesus, you’re scaring him.” Father reached over, lifting the little one into the safety of his arms. He allowed Lucas to settle there. The boy inhaled the scent of his father, falling back into an easy half-sleep at the comforting scent.   
  
Nothing would get by Father. He could keep them all together.  
  
“I am not leaving you here,” Mother said again. “We will stay together, as a family.”  
  
Lucas nodded his agreement emphatically. Father shushed him gently.  
  
“It won’t be easy. This war’s been a long time brewin’.”  
  
“What choice do we have?”  
  
Silence.   
  
Lucas looked between Mother and Father as their eyes met above him. There was love in that uncompromising stare, something that screamed forever into the face of time and Fate. They reached across the space separating them in the small room, their skin glowing in the dying firelight as their hands entwined.  
  
“Together,” Father agreed. “Like always.”


	3. Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bishop takes a moment to relieve some of his burden with Hank, while Wolverine and Storm butt heads once again.

**Chapter Three: Truth**

  
  
  
He had memories of this kitchen. As a child, his mother would bring him here when he had nightmares. She would sing softly after procuring him a cup of hot chocolate, luring him back to better dreams of sunlight and laughter.  
  
Bishop pulled the front of his long dreadlocks back, securing it with a thin strip of black leather. He rotated sore shoulders with the motion, trying to work some of the ache from them. The trip back had been strenuous and his body screamed for sleep. So swiftly called to battle certainly hadn’t helped anything.  
  
There would be no rest, not just yet. He had miles to go and an ache in his heart. They had told him he would not be prepared for this. With all his training, the millions of history lessons, there was nothing that could be done for his confrontation with the past on an emotional level. He should be keeping his distance, but it was increasingly hard even within the negligent space of several hours.  
  
Bringing his hands together, Bishop took a deep breath. At least he would have some sort of ally now. Father said Beast would likely figure everything out long before anyone else. He could always talk to McCoy, no matter what the trouble.  
  
The kitchen door swung open, revealing the bestial-looking mutant in question. He still wore his lab coat, but there was a small smile on his face as he entered. The other man said nothing as he moved around the kitchen.   
  
Bishop heard the dull clink of glass and metal before McCoy moved toward him, holding what smelled to be coffee in plain black mugs. Good,  _real_  coffee.  
  
“Wow,” Bishop breathed. “Thank you.”  
  
Beast smiled, though his eyes reflected sorrow that something as simple as a cup of coffee was so important to him. Bishop tried to smile, but took a sip of the fresh, bitter brew and nearly fainted with the pleasure of it.  
  
“Your mother is resting comfortably under the watchful eye of our resident Wolverine and the others are asleep.” Beast said calmly. “We have the freedom to speak, should you wish to. Or you may simply enjoy the delightful French Roast in your hands. We could go wild, let our hair down and dig into some Ben and Jerry’s.”  
  
Bishop blinked. “Who are Ben and Jerry?”  
  
Beast put a hand to his chest, gasping dramatically. “Good Lord, boy, what have your parents been doing with you?”  
  
The younger mutant could not help himself. Though he tried to remain stoic, he found himself unwillingly smiling. It was not long before a soft chuckle left his lips. McCoy was always one of his favorite adults with that knack for always making him laugh.   
  
“Its ice cream,” McCoy said quickly, standing. “And I always need something decadent after such a robust tussle.”  
  
“Wait…” Bishop could feel his face lighting up with hope. “Did you just say ice cream?”  
  
McCoy grinned like a schoolboy. “I will get two spoons.”  
  
Anticipating the sweet treat he only vaguely remembered from a far off childhood, Bishop watched as Beast rummaged through the icebox. A small carton was removed before McCoy took two spoons from a drawer and bounced back to the table.  
  
The two sat quietly while Beast opened the ice cream carton and handed Bishop a spoon. Slightly wary that his memory would be better than reality, Bishop gave himself a quick mental pep talk before spooning a small amount of the dessert into his mouth.  
  
The soft, gooey chocolate ice cream laced with something that reminded him of fruit brought a smile of utter pleasure to Bishop’s lips. He hadn’t had anything so good in  _years_. Speech was lost as he dug into the sweet treat.  
  
“Things must be dire, indeed,” Beast said several minutes later in a low, maudlin tone. “If such simple pleasures are forgotten.”  
  
Bishop let the ice cream in his mouth melt on his tongue as he fought with the maddening urge to keep his poker face in place, his hand close to the vest. Beast knew enough as it stood; he could cause irreparable damage to course of history. But for all of Bishop’s meticulous training, he still knew little about the actual people of this world and how events came to pass.  
  
He knew the ripple of aftershocks, not the devastation of the earthquake.  
  
Eyes on the spoon in his hand, Bishop watched the reflection of the dim light on the ice cream-smeared metal. Father had been right after all; he did need to talk to someone.  
  
“Its worse,” Bishop said quietly. He cleared his throat to get the emotion out of it. “Why else would they start playing with timelines?”  
  
“And your mother agreed to this?” Beast questioned softly.   
  
“She didn’t like it,” he admitted. “But someone had to go. I volunteered.”  
  
“You came here, facing a world you do not understand, the mother you left behind,” McCoy sighed. “Bishop, I’m afraid I still…”  
  
“You’re skeptical,” Bishop smiled at his spoon before meeting Hank’s eyes. “You’re always skeptical, Uncle Hank.”  
  
Amusement covered the young mutant’s face, as his “uncle” seemed to enjoy the simple, familial endearment.   
  
“Mother’s big on titles,” he offered as explanation. “She’s big on family all around.”  
  
Silence stretched between them again. Bishop took another small bite of ice cream, washing it down with the delicious coffee his uncle had provided for him. Such little things…but important ones. Bishop hoped that his mission would give his sister the wonderful taste of ice cream.  
  
“Bishop,” McCoy spoke after several long moments of silence. “You must speak on this, at least somewhat. Holding all emotion inside will do more harm than good.”  
  
“I can’t,” he shook his head. “I’m afraid of what my words will do to this timeline.”  
  
“The timeline you came back to change?” Beast raised a blue brow. “You already altered it. You are only causing yourself unnecessary pain.”  
  
He sighed. “I have to look that woman in the face and pretend she isn’t my mother. There is nothing but pain from where I sit, Uncle.”  
  
Hank seemed at a loss for words for a moment. He reached across the table, taking a dark hand with one covered in fur. Bishop met his uncle’s eyes, expelling a breath forcefully.  
  
“Ok,” Bishop said softly. “There is one thing I know will prove to you who I am without getting Mother and I swabbed in the med-lab.”  
  
Without another word, Bishop reached into his pocket and produced a small holo-imager. He placed it in the center of the table, pressing the button on the side to produce the image it had captured some time ago.  
  
The small screen flickered to life, a recording he had kept lovingly on his person for some five years now. Before both mutants, Storm appeared on the screen, her face battle-worn and smeared with dirt, her shocking white Mohawk flowing in the wind.   
  
“Bishop,” she snapped at the man behind the imager. “Would you please stop that?”  
  
“Of course not,” he answered quickly.   
  
A beat later, an explosion rocked the imager, but Storm was laughing. Wolverine had landed directly on top of her.  
  
“Hey, darlin’.”  
  
“Why, hello there,” she replied with a matching grin.  
  
“Ew,” came a new voice as the camera swung from the kissing couple. It focused on a tall, leggy beauty with hair the color of flax and completely white eyes. “Bish, make ‘em stop!”  
  
“Can’t do that,” said Bishop from behind the camera. “Smile, Shardy.”  
  
“God, you three are insane.” The blonde said with a fond eye-roll. “The world’s going to hell and you’re just standing around!”  
  
“The world’s always goin’ to hell, honey,” Wolverine replied as the imager began to crackle.   
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Shard replied, her image fading. “Come on, Bish, we’ve got an opening in the left flank that’s got the Munroe name written all over it.”  
  
“I’m there!”  
  
The imager switched off, taking the glowing memory away. Bishop handed the slender disc to his uncle. He knew the man would take the futuristic technology apart, proving once and for all that he was exactly as he claimed.  
  
Beast was staring at him in shock, blinking somewhat dazedly, as though he had been hit in the head with something heavy. Bishop braced himself, waiting for the stream of questions likely to hit him in mere seconds.  
  
“Wolverine?” was all the enormous furry mutant seemed capable of saying.  
  
“Well, yeah,” Bishop rolled his eyes. “What? Did you think my mother immaculately conceived me? I have a father.”  
  
“But…Wolverine?” Hank shook his head.  
  
Bishop nodded miserably. “I know. I don’t understand it. They seem to hate each other now.”  
  
Beast frowned. “They didn’t tell you about their relationship?”  
  
He shrugged one shoulder, looking away. “They just glossed over everything before Mother got pregnant with me.”  
  
After regarding him silently for several moments, Beast sighed. “You must give them time, surely you cannot have been born for several years from now.”  
  
Bishop winced.  
  
Beast inhaled sharply. “Don’t tell me. Just…don’t.”  
  
The younger mutant gave him a small smile. “I wasn’t planning on it.”  
  
“Who was the girl? Shardy?”  
  
The dark man looked away again. “My sister, Shard,” he muttered quietly.  
  
Hank promptly slapped his forehead with a furry palm. “I don’t think I want to know any more.”  
  
Sensitive to the fact that his uncle’s brain likely felt ready to implode, Bishop changed tactics.  
  
“I did do something right, though,” he said flatly. “History says that Leech was killed on this day, that Mother watched him die.”  
  
“Watched?” Hank asked, obviously taken aback.   
  
Bishop nodded. “She was restrained and too close to Leech to use her powers. The guilt ate at her for years. Still does, if you ask me.”  
  
“Why would they want to kill the child?” Hank mused, scratching his chin.  
  
“To eliminate the threat,” Bishop offered. “And because the Brotherhood controls the last of the mutant cure. They’ll use it in ways you can’t even imagine.”  
  
“Oh, my stars,” Hank said, realization dawning on him.  
  
“Yeah,” Bishop scowled. “That’s something I need to take care of. I’ll need access to Cerebro’s computer files.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I have to find the Brotherhood by Saturday, or the X-Men will be holding another funeral.”  
  
~**~  
  
  
Aside from the minor concussion and a case of having the wind knocked out of her, Storm felt fine after the Brotherhood’s futile attack. It made her blood boil, though, to know they had invaded her home, threatened to take her children from her.  
  
That maternal instinct she always tried to tamp down was in full swing this morning.   
  
Christina Aguilera blasted from the earphones jacked into her portable MP3 player as dawn inched over the expansive tree line. She mouthed the words, glancing up at the golden sky as the rhythmic pounding of her running shoes striking pavement kept the time.  
  
It was her ritual, her cleansing. As Kitty liked to say “Stormy’s Me Time”. Usually, no one bothered her on the three-mile morning run around the grounds. She would listen to whatever music her friend downloaded, keeping her pace steady. At times, of course, the pace was punishing or languid.   
  
She started the strange custom just after arriving at the mansion some years past. Running kept the wanderlust at bay those first years. Now it cleared her mind, gave her time to mull over problems or emotions.   
  
It gave her time to quell the impulse to murder Wolverine with his own claws.  
  
No man on earth needed to be so damned stubborn. He adamantly refused to allow her to make any decision without extensive argument. He second-guessed her at every turn, undermining her authority over the children – with said children usually in the room – every time he felt the urge to irritate her.  
  
More often these days, Ororo wound up venting to Henry about his behavior. All Henry would say most of the time was that things would work themselves out. She had no help in dealing with the Wolverine.   
  
What made the entire situation worse was the fact that  _he_  sought  _her_  out, no matter if someone else could help him with whatever particular problem he needed solved at that exact moment. He could not go a single day without picking a fight with her.  
  
While she appreciated his staying on, knowing it was something Charles would have wanted, the man irked her. He danced upon her last nerve until she thought she would explode. He was wonderful with the children and took over Cyclops’ classes, but there were days she would give good money to see him drive off into the sunset on his pilfered motorcycle.  
  
At least he would not bother her now. He learned, very quickly, that no one came to Ororo during her run.   
  
She supposed there was something comforting about the continuity in Logan’s urgent summons. Every hearty bellow of her name reminded her that he had stayed with her when the others passed on without her. She knew, without either of them saying, that his influence had directly led to Henry turning down the offer as a United Nations Ambassador.   
  
But he was so damned stubborn!  
  
No man had any right to be such an enormous pain in the posterior only to turn around a heartbeat later to knock her knees out with a sexy smirk.  _That_  was irritating as shit.  
  
At least when he had pursued Jean, Ororo was safe from even imagined longing. Logan’s heart had belonged to the deceased telepath since the moment they met. Ororo thought it was sweet, if misplaced. She could vividly recall several conversations with Jean on the subject. The general consensus was while Wolverine was handsome, roguish, and had a smile that could tempt a nun into sin, he was off limits.   
  
Jean was devoted to Scott.  
  
She had also tried to encourage Ororo to look at him as more than just a thorn in her ass. Had Logan stuck around after his first encounter with the X-Men, Ororo had the terrible feeling that her beloved friend would have attempted matchmaking.   
  
Ororo would admit to a certain primal attraction, which was easily written off as sexual frustration. It had, after all, been quite a while since she had any physical contact that did not require batteries.  
  
Shaking her head to clear it of thoughts of Wolverine, Ororo grinned as her music switched to the immortal genius of European techno-master Scooter. Humming to the throbbing beat, her pace increased to keep up with the vibrating tempo. She glanced back up at the morning sky, smiling slightly.  
  
That fleeting smile was wiped from her lips a beat later when a tall, dark figure fell easily into step beside her. Annoyed now, Ororo glared at the stoic, expressionless face of Bishop as he jogged beside her.  
  
He was staring straight ahead, something loud blasting out of a small earpiece. Without a word, he glanced to her and increased his pace.  
  
Feeling that challenge bring her hackles up, she rushed to outdistance him. He moved easily in step with her, and then outran her once more. Ororo caught up, feeling her competitive drive kick into high gear.  
  
In seconds, the two of them were racing down the path. Ororo pushed her body into a full tilt run with everything she had left, uncaring that sweat was pouring down her face, making her clothing cling to her curves.   
  
Bishop’s dark flesh gleamed with the sheen of sweat now covering him. His breathing was labored as they rounded the greenhouses, heading for the long stretch that would take them back to the mansion.  
  
He quickly sprinted away from the X-Men leader, leaving her in the proverbial dust. Ororo gaped at him, surprised at how fast a man that big actually was. She slowed her pace again, feeling the burn deep inside her muscles, her bruised lungs crying for reprieve.  
  
As the back door to the mansion appeared, she slowed to a walk with one hand on her aching hip. Bishop continued down the path at his uncanny pace. When Ororo reached the steps, she stopped, watching him carefully as he moved further and further away.  
  
Noticing Hank had appeared at her side, she took the towel and water bottle he handed her after removing the earphones from her ears. Not bothering to look at her enormous blue friend, she watched Bishop slowly disappear.  
  
There was something to this man who claimed to know the future. She squinted at his vanishing form in the bright morning sunlight. It surprised her when she realized she was beginning to accept his claims. Perhaps because of the battle the previous afternoon or the simple fact that something in her “gut” – as Logan referred to it – told her he was legitimate, but she believed him.  
  
“He has requested access to Cerebro’s computer files,” Henry said quietly. “But for that I need your authorization.”  
  
Storm wiped the sweat from her brow. “If he wants access, he can ask me.”  
  
Hank regarded her calmly. “Yes, my dear.”  
  
Ororo waited until Bishop was out of her eye line completely before she turned and moved into the house to start her day.  
  
~**~  
  
  
He watched her from the window in the upstairs hall as she ducked back into the house. Hank shook his head after her, then turned as though searching for the jogging Bishop. The darker man had disappeared into the expansive grounds, keeping his pace almost punishing.  
  
It was something of a habit for Logan to watch Ororo on her daily run. From his window, he could see every turn she made around the greenhouses until he lost sight of her in the tree line where Bishop had just vanished to.   
  
He often wondered what drove her to run at five every morning. She’d been doing it since his first visit to the mansion, surprising him one of the first mornings after he awoke in the med-lab after Liberty Island. He’d gone out to be alone and found himself and found himself staring at an aloof weather manipulator chasing whatever she was looking for in the quiet dark before dawn.   
  
Since the deaths of more than half her family, Logan watched her retreat into a hole deep inside. She’d shown him after Alkali Lake that there was personality and fire beneath the icy exterior she portrayed to the world. Her damn challenges to him always weighed heavily on his mind, driving him to thoughts about home and permanence he’d never before entertained.  
  
And yet, she kept her distance as though she’d spent a lifetime doing just that. The children, Wolverine, and even to some extent Hank were kept at arm’s length. In the aftermath of Phoenix’s destruction, Logan had expected anger, grief. He’d prepared himself for it, wanting to prove to her that he wasn’t just a nomadic jackass as he assumed she considered him.  
  
In no way was he prepared for her calm. She had simply taken up the Professor’s school, dealt with the lawyers, counseled the children as though she felt nothing.   
  
That, more than anything, led to the little game he continued with her. Picking at her, prodding her until he was sure she entertained thoughts of murder. At least she was reminded that he was still there, that he had no intention of leaving. It probably wasn’t the best way to be there for her, but it had been in motion by the time he realized what he was doing.   
  
Well, partially. She irritated the shit out of him. Her cool composure, stick-up-the-ass attitude and righteous superiority just got under his skin. He wanted to crack the ice around that woman, to see what kind of fire lay dormant beneath the wintry surface. The poking at her became his retaliation for crimes she likely didn’t know she committed.  
  
No woman had any right being that damn stubborn and cold when she looked like that. Oh, his heart still mourned for lost Jean, but Ororo had taken over other parts of him.  _That_  was irritating as shit. How could he properly irritate her if he kept waking in the middle of the night from sweat-inducing erotic dreams?  
  
He chalked it up to his being male and her being the only female in the vicinity over twenty-one.   
  
She was a looker, no denying. Delicate features etched into soft, caramel flesh with those expressive dark eyes and unique snowy hair often filled idle thoughts. When he pissed her off, her face would flush, reminding him that she could actually shove a lightning bolt up his ass if he pushed too far. Logan happened to enjoy danger, perhaps that was the allure.   
  
He waited for several minutes until he was sure she was in the kitchen, getting everything ready for the breakfast rush. Before he moved from the window, he caught a glimpse of Bishop moving around the track again. The dark mutant had determination and icy cool all over him. It reminded him of Storm, in some weird way.  
  
Though he wasn’t one to trust easily, he couldn’t help it with Bishop. Something in the man’s eyes told Logan this wasn’t to be easily dismissed. He had to taken this entire ordeal on a leap of faith, no matter how insane it sounded. Bishop was here for a reason and everything in Logan’s body told him to close his eyes and jump over the precipice between logic and faith.  
  
Familiarity. That’s what it was. There was something so damned familiar about that guy.  
  
Sighing at his own, sentimental thoughts, Logan lit his cigar and stomped down the stairs. If he didn’t get down soon, he’d miss his morning bout with Storm. That would just send his entire day out of whack.  
  
Before he hit the bottom of the staircase, he inhaled deeply and bellowed: “STORM!”  
  
He didn’t need to see her face to know she’d just rolled her eyes toward the heavens for strength.   
  
“What?” came the already irritated reply as she entered the hall.  
  
Damn, he’d almost missed her.  
  
“We gotta talk, woman,” he snarled while inwardly laughing. Logan pulled an envelope from his back pocket and thrust it at her.  
  
She took it with a slightly raised brow as her water bottle tilted up for her to drink. When she brought it back down, Ororo sighed. “I have asked you repeatedly to stop referring to me as ‘woman’.”  
  
“What would ya like me to call ya?” Logan countered.  
  
“Oh, I don’t know,” she brushed past him, moving up the staircase. “Storm, Ororo, Professor Munroe.”  
  
Logan made a face at her back.  
  
“I saw that.”  
  
He fought a smile, following her up the stairs. “Anyway,  _Storm_  wanna explain that?”  
  
She tossed the now empty water bottle into the trashcan on the landing before glancing at the envelope.  
  
“This? It’s your pay stub, Wolverine,” she said simply, thrusting it back at him when he fell into step beside her.  
  
“Yeah? So, why is the balance negative 6 grand?”  
  
The slow, sideways smile that curved her luscious lips threatened to take his knees out. No damn way a woman should be that damn sexy without even trying. It wasn’t right.  
  
“Well, you did use my business credit to buy Marie’s tickets to Germany.”  
  
Logan came to a dead halt in the hallway. “What?”  
  
Ororo turned on him, raising that seductive brow again. “Do I look stupid?”  
  
He honestly had no answer for that. Storm tossed him a flirty smile and turned on the heels of her white and blue sneakers. Astonished that he’d been busted and busted hard, Logan gave immediate chase.  
  
“I ain’t payin’ this,” he snarled as she unlocked her bedroom door.  
  
“You don’t have to,” she shot back. “I am garnishing your wages.”  
  
“ _What_?”  
  
With her Lycra-clad hip, she pushed into her bedroom, taking the stack of messages someone always slipped under her door. Logan didn’t care whose room they were entering; they were finishing this conversation.  
  
The scent hit him before he even noticed the furnishings. Rain and snow and all those things nature provided saturated the room. At first the scent disoriented him, he thought they had somehow walked outside. It took several seconds for him to realize it was her scent, unaltered by several dozen others.  
  
“I said I am garnishing your wages, Wolverine,” Storm replied as she scanned her messages.   
  
He took a moment to stare at her. Hair a mess, not a drop of makeup on her face, her simple blue tank and white Lycra pants, she should have looked like hell. Instead, Logan saw her as the world should have. Beauty, danger, the ferocity of the elements all wrapped into this innocently buttoned up schoolteacher.  
  
How the hell was  _that_  fair?  
  
Logan had to blink twice to get his thoughts in order. He really,  _really_  needed to get himself laid before his hormones got the best of him.  
  
“You can’t do that.” Logan fought her, balling his hands into fists.  
  
“Actually,” she countered without looking up. “I can. I am the administrator and headmistress of this school, which you are an employee of. I can do whatever I like.”  
  
He glared at her. Unperturbed by his anger, Ororo took the earphones dangling over her shoulder and collected the slender MP3 player from the clip on her pants. She frowned at a set of messages, shaking her head to herself.  
  
“I earned that money,” Logan said as he came closer. “Dealin’ with those brats all day.”  
  
“Of course you did,” Storm murmured absently. “And you spent it as well.”  
  
“This is fucked up.”  
  
His swearing recaptured her waning attention. It wasn’t any fun to fight with someone who wouldn’t fight back, after all.  
  
“Watch your mouth,” she fired back, her dark eyes flashing. She looked around suddenly, as though realizing for the first time that he had stealthily invaded her personal space. “Get out of my room.”  
  
“Nuh-uh,” Logan said. He shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re gonna pay me.”  
  
“No,” she disagreed. “You are going to pay me. I can’t afford to buy round trip tickets to Germany for every former student I’ve got.”  
  
“We gonna get into that again? She’s still one of us.”  
  
“No, she isn’t.”  
  
“Damn, now you sound like Magneto.”  
  
_Whoops._  Logan inwardly winced. He had just crossed that imaginary line; jumped right over it with all six claws blazing. The flash of hurt that came over her lovely face made him want to duck his head in shame. He fought the urge, meeting her gaze defiantly.  
  
“Get out of my room.”  
  
“No.”  
  
He realized what she was going to do a minute too late. She glanced at the open door behind him and then thrust one hand out in an almost careless motion. The force of her suddenly gathered winds hit Logan square in the chest. He toppled backward, tossed out of the room and into the hall. Her bedroom door slammed closed as he hit the deck and slid several feet.  
  
Collecting himself, Logan propped himself up on his hands and stared at the closed door.  
  
“Bitch,” he snarled under his breath.  
  
“Jackass,” he clearly heard her mutter from behind the closed door.  
  
One of these days they were going to end up killing each other, he was certain of it.


	4. Embrace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke loses himself to memory before Logan and Ororo find themselves in a...compromising position.

**Chapter Four: Embrace**

  
  
  
**Another Time, Another Place**  
  
His legs were swinging over the edge of the chair, a bar of nutrients in his hand. He munched absently, wondering when all the fuss was going to be over. Mother hadn’t sung him to sleep last night, which always made him a little antsy. With Father in the other room too, Lucas wanted to throw a fit that everyone was ignoring him.  
  
What could be so important? Mother and Father always said they loved him more than anything in the world. They’d tried to leave the fighting so many times, as a family, just to keep him safe. But it never worked. Something or someone always called them back. Luke finally decided that he’d just learn to fight too. That way, they always stayed together.  
  
Luke sighed, pulling the wrapper over his nutrient bar and stuffing it into his pocket. He missed real food sometimes. If he thought hard about it, he could remember the delicious meals Mother would make in the warm, sunny kitchen back at the mansion. They’d been happy there until the fighting started. Until the bad men had come to destroy their home.  
  
He couldn’t remember what his room had looked like, what posters Father had put on the walls, but he recalled the feeling of safety, of home. Moving every few days, with the sounds of air raid sirens and explosions dwarfed the cherished memories. Luke thought, sometimes, that life was defined by waking up to those awful noises.  
  
“Lucas?”  
  
At Father’s call, Luke’s mood brightened immediately. He slid off of the chair and rushed to his father, hugging him tightly around the legs as only a seven year old could. Father smelled of cigars and sweat, his eyes rimmed with dark shadows from lack of sleep.  
  
“Where’s Mother?” The boy asked cautiously, wondering if she had been injured in the battle.  
  
“Inside,” Father said as he lifted the stocky boy into his arms. “Someone’s here to meet you.”  
  
“Who?” Luke questioned as Father carried him into the room. “I didn’t see anyone come in.”  
  
Father chuckled quietly. “She came another way, buddy.”  
  
Luke’s eyes had to adjust to the dim light of the secluded room, but he soon spotted his mother lying on a small cot in the corner. She looked tired, a small secret smile covering her lips when she caught sight of him. One long hand beckoned them closer, her free arm shifting a tiny bundle in her arms.  
  
“Come here, darling,” she whispered to Lucas. “Your sister has arrived.”  
  
He suddenly understood as Father lowered him to the floor. Mother had been saying for a long time now that someone important was going to come. He’d watched her belly swell, felt the little person she swore was inside kick his hand as it lay upon the massive lump. Excitement filled his tender heart as he scrambled to Mother’s bedside, eager to meet this long-awaited arrival.  
  
Mother shifted toward him, unwrapping the teeny bundle in her arms as Lucas peered closer. The little person looked squashed and mean, like an old man. Her dark skin was slightly pink and when her eyes opened, he immediately saw that they were rimmed with white. Like Mother’s.  
  
“Her name is Elizabeth,” Mother whispered as the baby looked up at her big brother curiously.  
  
“She’s tiny,” Lucas muttered, reaching in to take one miniature hand with his pinky. “And squishy.”  
  
“You were pretty squishy, too,” Father chuckled again. “It’s a small place to squeeze out of.”  
  
“You don’t have to tell me,” Mother quipped, grinning at Father.  
  
Lucas didn’t understand what they meant, but he was too engrossed with the tiny person to really care. He leaned in, kissing her itty-bitty forehead. “Hi, Lizzie. Welcome to the world.”  
  
~**~  
  
“Bish!”  
  
“Shar?”  
  
“Oh, thank the Goddess above,” his sister’s voice crackled through the comm.. “What’s your location?”  
  
“Five clicks due east of the river basin,” Bishop replied, tamping down his relief at hearing her voice. “Yours?”  
  
“Three south of your current,” Shard reported professionally. “Storm’s unit is in position as well. Move on thunder, big brother.”  
  
Bishop smirked, hiding the gesture from the men under his command. He noticed the clouds darkening overhead with something like pleasure. It was always nice to know that Mother was watching their backs.  
  
“Copy that,” he barked to his sister. There was a heavy weighted pause on the comm. before he replied. “Don’t get dead.”  
  
“Back at ya,” Shard said as the comm. clicked off.  
  
With a glance at his men and several silent hand gestures, Bishop ordered his team to move on his mark. Several of them glanced at the sky, gulping at the sight of his mother’s tornado farm dancing just above the ground. It would do no damage yet, but the awesome power she wielded made some nervous.  
  
Thunder shook the heavens and Bishop’s team poured out of the trenches. They fell on the human attackers in droves, meeting up with the other two teams mid-field. Though technology had improved over the last several decades, swarms of mutants were still hard to fight back for normal humans.  
  
What would kill one might aid another…how could you effectively counter that?  
  
Bishop fired off several charges with his plasma gun, absorbing two or three with his mutated body. He raised a bare hand, rerouting the kinetic energy back at his foes. He spotted a slash of brilliant light across the battlefield and inhaled deeply.  
  
There was Shard.  
  
Thunder boomed and lightning crashed.  
  
_Mother._  
  
Bishop felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, the approach of something malevolent and evil making his stomach clench unpleasantly. _Nimrod._  
  
Before the dark man could turn to counter his would-be attacker, the feral, animalistic scream of someone else cut through the battle-heavy din.  
  
_Father._  
  
He whipped around in time to see Wolverine attack the white and crimson robot. Nimrod had zeroed in on Bishop, even as Wolverine’s claws tore at the monstrosity’s computerized innards.  
  
“Wrong kid, bub.”  
  
Bishop light off three of his most powerful rounds before tapping his comm..  
  
“Shard. Storm. Nimrod.”  
  
The effect of his words was immediate. A stream of bright protons streaked by him a beat before powerful winds brought the hovering form of a weather goddess. While Wolverine darted in and out of Nimrod’s range, taking hunk of metal from the monster as he did, Bishop lit off with his weapon while Shard flooded the sensitive computer system with burning light.  
  
Mother had to go and show off with her lightning.  
  
Something inside the menace known as Nimrod exploded, sending the entire Munroe family flying. Bishop felt as though his body had been caught in one of Arclight’s shockwaves as he struggled to retain consciousness.  
  
Rolling to push himself to standing, he caught sight of Nimrod’s mangled body. Father was thrown almost carelessly over a busted street lamp. Mother lay motionless on the pavement. Shard was only inches from her brother, a large gash on her cheek.  
  
“Shar?”  
  
He crawled to her, grunting through the pain. “Lizzie?” Emotion choked his throat as his fingers grazed her shoulder, trying to jostle her enough to wake her.  
  
“Not dead,” the young woman groaned. Bishop thought the relief at hearing her voice would make him faint. “Kinda wish I was, though.”  
  
He had to smile at that. Nothing ever stopped that woman’s insane sense of humor.  
  
“STORM!”  
  
Both children turned as fast as they could, watching as their father limped toward the fallen form of their mother. Without even speaking, they helped one another stand, stumbling toward their rapid-healing parent.  
  
Wolverine had drawn Storm into his arms, touching her face and cradling her as though his heart were breaking. Shard and Bishop sank to bruised knees, reaching for their mother with trembling hands.  
  
It was their worst fear, losing one of their number to battle. It was why their parents often sent them on duo missions far from the fighting, why Bishop was being trained for such an impossible assignment.  
  
“Storm, don’t you leave me,” Wolverine growled, leaning down to nuzzle her nose.  
  
“Mother?” Shard whimpered.  
  
Bishop, on the other hand, had stood. He raised the weapon in his hands, taking several plasma charges from the surrounding battle. Rage colored his vision a bright crimson as Nimrod’s repaired body met him toe to toe.  
  
“Lucas…”  
  
He ignored his sister’s call, lighting off both weapon and mutation at the bastard machine so hell bent on destroying his family. An enraged scream left his throat as he pushed the creation of that dead bastard Trask back toward the main battle.  
  
At seeing him, the mutants turned from their human enemies and fell on the robot. They could not kill it, but they would fight it.  
  
Bishop turned back to his family, not surprised to see his mother’s eyes staring back at him. Father was still holding her as though he could anchor his beloved to the here and now by will alone. Shard was standing, limping toward her brother.  
  
He came toward them, sinking back to his knees as they huddled together amid the victorious tide. Family. That was everything. He’d do anything for them.  
  
Anything.  
  
~**~  
  
  
**Now**  
  
“What do you mean ‘no’?”  
  
“Do you have a problem understanding simple words? Do we not speak English in the future?”  
  
Storm was staring down at her files, ignoring the angry glare currently making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Bishop had come into her office shortly after noon, demanding to be allowed into Cerebro’s classified files.  
  
Obviously her answer was not going to go over well.  
  
“You’re being unreasonable.” Bishop grunted, crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
“No, I’m being responsible,” Ororo countered without bothering to look up. For some reason her casual dismissal of his request bothered him. “The information in those files is sensitive and I can’t just hand that over to every Tom, Dick, and Marty McFly that comes along.”  
  
She scrawled her signature at the bottom of a purchase order and filed it away neatly. Bishop had still not left her office, so she straightened her spine, readying herself for the fight that was likely to ensue.  
  
Though he had been at the mansion only two days, Ororo could see he was forming ties to the people housed within. Logan and Henry were the worst culprits, often found chatting amicably with their strange guest. That made her nervous. Bishop had the potential to make things messy. Ororo didn’t much care for messy at the moment.  
  
Storm only wanted him gone. There was nothing she needed less at the moment than a self-proclaimed futuristic mutant determined to change the course of history in ways she could only imagine. What she did need was next month’s class schedule, a talk with her financial advisors and a week in Belize.  
  
“I need that information,” Bishop was saying. “I have to…”  
  
“Save the world, prevent war, yadda yadda yadda.” Storm flapped her hand impatiently at him.  
  
“You go too far,” he snarled.  
  
Storm stood, slamming her hands on her desk as the sting behind her eyes told her the tenuous hold on her devastating mutation was slipping.  
  
“I haven’t gone far enough,” she shot back. “You can’t just burst in on our lives and expect to be handed everything you demand on a damned platter.”  
  
Bishop’s ebony gaze met hers, hard and unrelenting. She had to hand it to him; the man was like a pit bull after a juicy bone. He didn’t let anyone or anything cow him. Ororo drew in her mutation, feeling it darken the skies.  
  
“Do you think this is easy for me?” Bishop said in a deathly quiet tone. “You have no idea what I’ve done to get this far.”  
  
Storm shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t care. I have other things that need my attention.”  
  
His jaw came closed with an audible snap of his teeth. “The Storm I know would never be afraid of something she couldn’t explain. The woman I know has never been a coward a day in her life.”  
  
Angry now, Ororo came around her desk in two strides, facing down the man she wanted to electrocute. His eyes met hers, unwilling to give even an inch. She gripped his shirt, bringing his towering frame down until they stood nose to nose.  
  
“You don’t know me. You have no idea who I am,” she whispered scathingly.  
  
Bishop’s eyes reflected acute and momentary pain, the look gone in an instant. Ororo flinched, something in that odd look lancing through her heart. She suddenly felt for this young man, wanting to reach out and comfort him.  
  
What the hell was wrong with her?  
  
He gently pried her hand from his shirt, shrugging her grip off as though she were nothing. Storm drew her emotions inside, buttoning them up as she stepped back slightly. He was getting to her; breaking down some invisible barrier she hadn’t even known was there.  
  
“You know something, Storm?” Bishop said, regarding her impassively. “You’re right, I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about this cold, heartless _bitch_ standing in front of me. I know the woman from my timeline and suddenly, I don’t want to fix a goddamn thing. I’d rather keep the Storm I know.”  
  
Ororo felt as though she had slapped him, the honest truth in his eyes nothing compared to the pain she could see bubbling beneath the surface. She cast her gaze to the portrait over her desk, as though asking Charles what he would do in this situation.  
  
In that one moment, with Bishop’s heated words echoing in her mind, she believed him. She could not explain how or why, but her heart placed her firmly on his side. Hating her treacherous heart, she let Bishop brush past her. The feel of Charles in her mind reminded her that he had always said to follow one’s heart.  
  
Damn that man.  
  
“Bishop.”  
  
His heavy footsteps stopped at her office door at her gentle call of his name. Neither of them turned around, keeping their backs facing one another. Ororo closed her eyes, throwing a quick prayer up that someone – anyone – guide her through his unfamiliar territory.  
  
“You tell me why you need Cerebro’s files,” she said quietly. “And I’ll give you access.”  
  
A lengthy pause followed this, each conferring with their own demons.  
  
“The Brotherhood has the cure,” came the soft rumble of his rich baritone. “They will turn it into a weapon of mass destruction against all mutants that don’t join them. One more piece of the puzzle.”  
  
Ororo took that blow to the heart, but said nothing to betray that. “That’s why they wanted Jimmy?”  
  
“To kill him,” Bishop agreed. “And to break you.”  
  
Unable to turn around, though she desperately wanted to, Ororo swallowed thickly.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You’re the reason this side of the fence exists,” Bishop revealed with obvious emotion in his voice. “When you took up Xavier’s torch, you saved the dream. You’re their worst enemy and our biggest champion.”  
  
She felt a single, hot tears lip down her cheeks. It was too good to be true. Knowing that she had done something good when she kept the school open paled in comparison to what this young warrior was saying now. Could she be that woman? Leading her children into battle for the sake of an ideal?  
  
Was she that hero at heart? Or was it all an act?  
  
“Why are you telling me this?” She demanded of the young man behind her, turning to stare at the broad expanse of his back.  
  
“I shouldn’t,” he said, not turning to her. “But you have to know. You can’t give up, you can’t let them break you.”  
  
His words were almost desperate and Ororo felt their meaning to the bottom of her soul. In that place she kept locked away since the death of her family, she felt life again. This young man knew that side of her, the part of her she kept locked away while she dealt with the school, the children. Was she that person in his world? Was she free?  
  
“Storm Delta Zulu Foxtrot.”  
  
She would never be able to explain why she said that or how she knew it was the right thing to do. Storm handed over the mansion’s secrets to this dark stranger and felt good about that. It should have terrified her, but something like relief flooded her tense shoulders instead.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
And with that, he left her alone in the office.  
  
~**~  
  
Lying awake well past midnight, Logan stared up at the dark ceiling of his bedroom. He fought dreams of half-remembered faces, the men that had tortured him, cruelly stolen his memory. Grappling with those old demons was nothing compared to the burning recollections of Liberty Island, Alkali Lake, Alcatraz.  
  
_Kill me. Kill me before I kill someone else._  
  
Shaking his aching head, Logan closed his eyes. He faced the open window, only prying his eyelids apart when a warm breeze reached him. Emerald green eyes seemed to stare back at him, though he knew it to be impossible.  
  
_Save me.  
  
I love you._  
  
His hands clenched and released against his pillow as he fought to regain control. If the memories took him, he would feel the warm weight of her against his claws as she died, hear the scream Storm tried to hold back. The sight of her beautiful face frozen in death. Storm’s tears. The sorrow.  
  
“Damn it.”  
  
On the growled curse, Logan pushed himself to sitting, swinging his legs over the side of his bed. He didn’t want to dwell here anymore, lost in dreams he wanted nothing more than to hide from. Nothing was all right in the quiet hours of the night, when memory overtook him more swiftly than a lover’s ignited passion.  
  
Rarely did love enter his thoughts of Jean anymore. He was wracked with the guilt of taking her life, but the love he had claimed in those last seconds had faded. His love for her had been fast and fiery, not made to last. He felt like a traitor just thinking that, but the truth would not leave him alone.  
  
He pulled on a sweatshirt and padded out of his bedroom, lost in those self-destructive thoughts. Maybe some time working out in the Danger Room would exhaust him into dreamless sleep. If that didn’t work, he’d just stay awake. Sleep was for the weak anyway, right?  
  
As he hit the main floor, before he turned toward the elevator, Logan heard the muffled sound of a piano. He felt his brow go up, his nostrils twitching as they inhaled the sweet scents of night. The only fresh scent was that of the school’s headmistress and it happened to be coming from the same place as the music.  
  
Deciding to forgo his work out in favor of curiosity, Logan tiptoed toward the soundproofed Rec Room. He slid the door open gently, peering inside to find Storm seated at the enormous black piano, a half-gone bottle of vodka resting beside a full glass.  
  
“ _Oh, Georgia. Georgia. No peace I find. Just an old, sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind."_  
  
Surprised to hear the soft, throaty vocals coming from Storm’s full lips, Logan opened the door a little further. Her playing continued as though she had not seen him, her throat vibrating with the low hum as she moved to the end of her slow, maudlin song.  
  
He wasn’t quite sure what to make of this rather entertaining and disconcerting situation. It wasn’t like Storm to stay up past midnight. It wasn’t like her to drink. And who knew she played the piano?  
  
Was it Mystique or something?  
  
Logan sampled the air again, confirming even to his suspicious mind that the woman inside was actually Storm. He stepped fully into the room, part of him wanting to continue watching her unnoticed, but knowing she would outright murder him if he didn’t announce himself soon.  
  
Storm closed the piano up, taking her glass as she stood. Logan knew instantly from the slight sway that she had obviously had more than just a glass. From her state of undress, she’d come down after preparing for bed. Did nightmares plague her nights? Insomnia?  
  
“You can come in,” she said, startling him. “I don’t bite.”  
  
“You sure?” Logan asked playfully.  
  
“Mmm,” she hummed.  
  
He remained where he stood, watching as she stumbled with some dignity toward the large stereo. Storm fiddled with the controls for several minutes, giving Logan an ample view of her back end as she bent at the waist. Her soft cotton sleep pants looked at least one size too big, worn with time and love. Her tank fitted against unrestrained breasts; that snowy hair loose at her shoulders.  
  
Appealingly innocent, that was the only way he could describe it. When the music changed to a throbbing dance beat, Storm’s hips swayed enticingly to the bass. Her arms went over her head – glass and all – as she danced. There was a slightly bemused smile on her beautiful face, one that spoke volumes of the alcohol consumption. No wonder it was so nice out, their weather mistress was completely hammered and enjoying every moment of it.  
  
“Want a drink?” She offered dazedly.  
  
Logan grunted, moving into the room and swiping the bottle from the piano. He glanced at the label, noting that she had somehow gotten into Piotr’s stash. Hank’s amusing tales of Storm as a thief sprang to mind, making him smile.  
  
As he took a heavy pull from the bottle, Storm rolled her hips, turning to face him.  
  
“It’s good.” He offered as she took a dainty sip from her glass.  
  
“Mmm.” She hummed again.  
  
If she didn’t stop, he’d end up seduced before either of them knew what was happening. Raging hormones were set to light like flame to kindling at the easy, uninhibited movement of her body. She looked ready to be tossed against that wall and taken. Hard. The evil, naughty voice in the back of his mind told him he could take her, show her what it was like to feel something on a completely primal level.  
  
Stopping the destructive train of thought before it got him into trouble, Logan took another long draw from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  
  
Storm danced her way toward him, fire and alcohol swimming in her dark eyes. Logan nearly gulped. She reached for him, taking his hand to draw him closer. Little red flags went up in his mind, making him quickly put the liquor aside. The last thing either of them needed was for things to get complicated between them. A drunken romp was certainly asking for complications.  
  
“You should go to bed,” he tried to convince her. “It’s late.”  
  
“Lonely,” she muttered, throwing back the rest of the contents of her glass. “Too lonely.”  
  
“Storm,” Logan tried again as she pulled him closer still. “You should go to bed.”  
  
She shook her head, that glorious hair whipping about her face. “Stay with me.”  
  
He stopped, releasing her hands. Storm halted as well, staring up at him in confusion and guarded hurt. Logan shook his head at her slowly, reaching for her glass and prying it from limp fingers.  
  
“Come on, I’ll take you to your room.”  
  
Her face crumbled slightly. He could feel the change in the air outside, the sudden chill that slipped through the room like the tears he knew she wouldn’t shed. Logan took her hand, unable to resist the impulse to kiss her palm, as though apologizing for something he didn’t understand.  
  
Silently, he pulled her from the Rec Room, leading her up the stairs. She followed like a lost duckling, clinging to any form of reality she could find. He didn’t know what had sparked her sudden drinking binge, but the need to keep her tethered to this world was too strong to be denied.  
  
When they reached her door, Storm pressed her body close to his, tilting her head up as though in offering. Logan grunted inwardly with restraint, making the man inside of him war with the beast that resided in his soul. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take advantage of a drunken woman so obviously hurting. Her confusion would clear in the light of day and their relationship would shatter, no matter how antagonistic it happened to be at the moment.  
  
Logan brought his hand up, cupping her chin and running his thumb over her plump, seductive bottom lip. “This ain’t what you need tonight, Storm.”  
  
At his whisper, he caught the flash of hurt in her eyes.  
  
“It’s ok,” he continued. “I’ll stay with you.”  
  
She seemed to accept this, her dark eyes meeting his unrepentantly. They stared at one another for what seemed to be an eternity, neither finding the words and their eyes too guarded to reveal anything but subtle curiosity.  
  
Finally, Storm opened her bedroom door, stumbling slightly in her inebriated state. Logan caught her waist with his hands, following her inside and shutting the door quietly behind him. Without so much as an embarrassed pause, Storm led him to her bed, drawing back the covers and inviting him to lie down with a look.  
  
He slipped into her bed, enjoying the softness of her blue sheets and the scent of nature all around him. She climbed in after him, lying on her side so that she faced him. Their eyes met again, that guarded stare from outside of her door returning.  
  
Without a word, Ororo reached for his hand. She entwined their fingers, laying their joined hands on the pillow between their faces. Logan would never be able to explain why he allowed this intimate touch or what he was thinking as he lay beside her.  
  
In the still of the night, they watched one another silently, hands clinging together like frightened children.


	5. Spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bishop finds his next target while Storm and Wolverine delve into things best left undisturbed.

**Chapter Five: Spark**

  
  
  
The cheerful chirp of a nearby bird dragged her from the heavy, beautiful sleep she’d found herself in. Warm, bright sunlight poured in from her open windows, showering her with the glow of early morning. Somewhere out of doors the trees rustled their leaves together by means of a soft breeze.  
  
Inside, Ororo fought the world’s urging to wake, wanting to drift back into that dreamless oblivion. Though she knew a headache was likely to pounce at any second, she enjoyed this moment between wakefulness and sleep. It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket, safe from the horrors another day might bring.  
  
She shifted, murmuring sleepily at the feel of a masculine body behind her. It felt wonderful to wake beside someone, to have an anchor to the real world. There was something fitting about the contact between a man and a woman, something nothing else in the world could match. Oh, she had missed this feeling. That lazy, sated euphoria that overcame someone who spent the night actually sleeping.  
  
Ororo batted her eyes open slowly, hating to leave this peaceful moment. A cursory glance about the room told her that everything was in order. The little voice in the back of her mind piped up, telling her in naughty tones that nothing would be amiss if her personal sentinel had really remained with her all night.  
  
He had. She knew instinctively that he had slept beside her through the accursed darkness.   
  
_I’ll stay with you._  
  
Ororo would never admit it aloud, but his whispered words and obvious restraint made her die -- just a little -- from the chivalry in his actions. The man may irritate her in the cold light of day, but that night he’d been exactly what she needed. Someone to lean on.  
  
“Ok,” she heard the deep rumble of his voice, still drained with sleep. He sounded adorable and she almost hated him for it. “Sleep good.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Ororo replied for lack of anything else to say.  
  
The arm thrown carelessly over her waist in the night flexed, bringing her closer. She felt Logan’s nose at the nape of her neck, his breath stirring the fine hairs there.   
  
“You smell good.” He observed which made her smile.   
  
Shifting her legs and flipping herself under the heavy weight of his arm, Ororo turned to face her companion. His eyes were open, zeroing in on hers almost the instant she was in view. That guarded look was replaced by one of innocent satisfaction. Ororo wondered when the last time he had really and truly slept was. Before Alcatraz? Alkali Lake?  
  
Had he ever?  
  
She wanted to lose herself in the moment, but her rational side kept tugging at her. She had a million things to do, dozens of calls to make, children to feed. Why was she loitering in bed with a man she wanted to kill or sleep with depending on the time of day?  
  
Oh, but he was so appealing. That soft, sated smile bordered on contentment and made something in her chest purr happily. She wanted nothing more than to slip further beneath the covers and loiter with him some more.  
  
“Don’t think,” Logan’s sleep-ridden voice cut into her thoughts. “Don’t overanalyze this. We got some sleep, lets leave it at that.”  
  
“Logan…” she began, the buttoned up professor sneaking in to take over the woman.  
  
“Hey, I just think it’s funny that I spent a whole night with you in my arms and I didn’t even try to cop a feel.”  
  
Unable to resist the lazy rumble of his voice, the amusement dancing so nakedly in his eyes, Ororo ducked her head into the pillow, chuckling softly. For another moment, she could tuck the professor away, she thought. _Just a moment._  
  
He surprised her by reaching up, taking her cheek in one calloused palm. There was something about those hands, she mused. Rough, big, masculine. Without thinking about it – or the ramifications of the action – she leaned into the touch. The wide pad of his thumb traced the line of her cheekbone, his suddenly serious eyes locking with hers.  
  
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered in the sunny quiet as though he had only just discovered something precious and powerful.  
  
Ororo couldn’t stop herself if she tried, moved by the intimacy of his touch, the honesty in his words. She reached out for him, tucking an errant lock of his dark hair back into its customary peak.   
  
“So are you.”  
  
She thought he might be offended or irritated by her comment. Not many men would appreciate being referred to as beautiful. But Logan merely smiled, a soft, pleased curve of his lips that made her ache to bite the corner of his mouth.   
  
“You sober?” His question was low, nearly a growl as she shifted closer.  
  
“Yes.” Ororo felt his grip tighten; saw the flash of something primal in his eyes and felt the same mirrored inside her. “Hell, yes.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
They met halfway, lips fusing together with heat that scorch the sun. Ororo’s hands flew to the wild mane of his hair, burying inside in some futile attempt to hold on to reality. His kiss seared her to the core, sending every nerve ending in her body up in flames. That wonderfully pliable mouth took hers without remorse or apology. She parted her lips, entreating him inside as he covered her body with his.  
  
Both of his hands found their way into her hair as hers drifted down to his shoulders. His tongue swept past her lips, tracing the edge of her teeth before plunging deeper to duel with her own. Ororo leaned up, undulating into Logan’s hard body in an uninhibited quest for more.  
  
Their mouths came apart only when air became necessary. Unable to remain idle, Ororo latched onto the flesh of his throat, rewarded when he groaned softly under the assault. Impatient hands traced her curves, pulling back the duvet and sheets until there was only clothing between them.   
  
She licked his pulse point, smiling against the frantic tattoo of his heartbeat. Logan pulled away with a soft growl that ignited more than frightened her. He mimicked her actions, tilting her head to the side with a gentle nuzzle before feathering kisses onto the sensitive flesh of her throat.  
  
Ororo groaned something that could have been his name. Goddess, it felt _good_. How could she have forgotten the way a man felt in her arms, touching her, fanning flames that threatened to burn?  
  
“Ororo.” His tender rumble of her name sent a delicious shiver racing down her spine as he tugged on her earlobe with his teeth.  
  
A knee came between hers, parting her legs so he could rest between them. Ororo dragged her feet up his calves as he settled between her thighs, tracing the curve of his backside until he jerked against her.  
  
His hard, hot length pressed into her belly, making want flare and pool inside her. Their lips met again, more frantic and needy this time. Ororo’s thought processes stopped, her neglected body overriding her better judgment.  
  
Of course it was the exact moment she made the unconscious decision to take Logan inside her body, damn the consequences, the unlocked bedroom door swung open.  
  
Startled, the couple on the bed turned toward the intrusion, matching looks of complete irritation and hatred on their faces. Ororo felt shame filter through her lusty mind, knowing what a compromising position they’d just been discovered in. What had she been thinking? Oh, right, she hadn’t been.  
  
Bishop stared back at the couple on the bed, something like mute shock in his eyes. Ororo winced inwardly, wondering what he thought of his hero now. No one spoke and the long, tense moment stretched between the trio.  
  
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Bishop said after a time. “It can wait.”  
  
He turned on his heel and left the room in a flurry of dark leather and long hair.  
  
Ororo nudged Logan, refusing to meet his eyes, in a silent plea to get him off of her. He remained quiet, shifting so she could slide out of the bed. Turning her back on him, Ororo moved toward the bathroom, her skin still tingling from the aftermath of his hands.  
  
She didn’t bother to look up when the bedroom door snapped closed behind him.  
  
~**~  
  
So, it wasn’t a fairytale love story.  
  
He stared down at his hands, studying them as if all the mysteries of life were contained in his dark flesh. The image of his parents locked in that borderline aggressive embrace threatened to break his heart.  
  
Was he really the product of some lonesome romp? Is that why they refused to tell him about their lives before his conception?   
  
All his life Bishop held the lofty ideal that his parents were the closest things to soul mates as mortals could get. His life, though torn apart by war, revolved around the simple truth that his parents loved one another, loved him, loved his sister. That love held them together when times were rough, as the battle dragged on.   
  
His mission seemed to pale in comparison to seeing his parents as they were before his birth. The heated arguments, irritation that seemed to come off of them in waves was not his memory of these people. He remembered laughter, love, even passion to some extent.  
  
Satisfied that he wasn’t going to start that temporal flux again as the skies outside remained clear and bright, Bishop sighed before he slammed his hand into the mansion’s intercom system, activating panels all over the grounds.   
  
“X-Men to the War Room.”  
  
Within seconds, Shadowcat and Iceman phased through the ceiling, landing neatly behind Bishop. The girl blinked at him as she took her seat, offering a gentle smile. Typical Aunt Kitty.  
  
Colossus entered from the elevator a moment later, flanked by Storm and Beast. Bishop took a moment to capture the image of his mother as a young woman, noting the familiar smile she was giving his Uncle Hank.  
  
He saw her in flashes here. Her strength was undeniable, her beauty unquestionable. The way she moved, how she fought, the damn stubborn determination…that was all Mother. It made him ache for the woman he had left behind, longing for her soothing embrace and the soft sound of an old lullaby.   
  
Bishop didn’t care if he was a mama’s boy; most men didn’t have a mother half as wonderful as his.  
  
She met his eyes without flinching, her cool dark gaze hiding anything that may have swirled beneath the surface. To his astonishment, she rewarded him with a small smile. Bishop felt emotion choke his throat, but he tamped it down.  
  
“Where’s the fire?”  
  
Turning toward the elevator once more, Bishop nodded to the man that would one day be his father. Logan had dressed since Bishop had last seen him several minutes ago and had a cigar hanging loosely from his lips. He wouldn’t change much in the next thirty years or so, though Bishop knew Mother would calm him.  
  
She would never tame him, but something about her soothed his inner demons.   
  
Logan caught Bishop staring, one bushy brow going up in silent question.   
  
Heart clenching, though he refused to let it show, Bishop turned to the assembled mutants. This torture was slowly killing him. If he didn’t start getting more done, to get back to whatever future he would have, he actually might lose his mind.   
  
Avoiding the curious stare from Beast, Bishop cleared his throat and shrugged out of his protective leather coat. He heard Kitty gulp and glanced at her. Oh. He’d forgotten about the scars, the tattoos. Well, she’d deal with it.  
  
“I’ve gone through several of the files I needed from Cerebro,” Bishop began in a ringing tone. “I believe I have discovered the Brotherhood’s main headquarters.”  
  
Of course, his mother spoke up first from her perch on the edge of the table between Colossus and Beast.   
  
“Where?”  
  
“An apartment building in New York City,” he replied. His dark hands gripped the back of a chair so he could lean on it. “Xavier had tracked several mutants to the area before his death and all reports from my timeline say they were close to the mansion around this period.”  
  
“That’s what you’re basing this on?” Iceman cut in skeptically as he sat back in his chair.  
  
Bishop ignored him. “My goal – at least for this event – is to get into the building, bypass the more powerful mutants and take out Pyro.”  
  
The assembled mutants jumped collectively. Bishop did not bother to flinch. He knew that Pyro had once been one of them, a student of Xavier’s until he betrayed them. The boy was Magneto’s most dangerous disciple.  
  
“Take out?” Logan questioned from his place opposite Storm. Bishop almost smirked at the man’s relaxed posture, the feet resting on the table.   
  
“Terminate,” Bishop clarified coldly. “Kill.”  
  
Storm cleared her throat, holding Piotr back with a hand to his shoulder. “X-Men don’t kill, Bishop. At least, not if we can help it.”  
  
“Do I look like an X-Man?” Bishop fired back.  
  
She glared at him, her eyes suddenly rimmed with white.  
  
“Why Pyro?” Iceman cut in, effectively halting the building fire fight.  
  
“In my timeline,” Bishop began, noticing the several pairs of rolled eyes without comment. “Pyro is one of our most deadly adversaries. Within days he will destroy part of the mansion, causing a death that was pivotal to the start of the war.”  
  
“Who?” Beast questioned quietly.  
  
Bishop didn’t have to respond. His eyes, of their own accord, darted to Piotr. To his dismay, the man was looking right at him. Storm’s hand gripped the young mutant’s shoulder more tightly, as though she could keep him from falling by sheer will.  
  
“Pete?” Wolverine’s heavy boots hit the floor with an echoing _thump_.  
  
His future mother stood slowly, meeting his gaze across the metallic table.  
  
“Why Piotr?”  
  
He clamped his mouth shut, unwilling to reveal the reasons. Thunder slammed against the windows, her eyes swirling white in an instant. The other mutants startled, but Bishop did not react.  
  
“Wrong time, wrong place,” Bishop said at last. “He just happened to be there.”  
  
Storm’s eyes slipped back to their cocoa color, but fire snapped inside the dark pools. Bishop winced inwardly, knowing that look. She was ready to crack the heavens and do some serious damage.  
  
“Pyro is the key here?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Then he’ll be dealt with,” Storm looked toward her X-Men. “Kitten?”  
  
“Ma’am?”  
  
“Get on your computer, see what you can find on Pyro and the Brotherhood’s movements.” Her orders were clipped, to the point, and left no room for argument. “Hank, get Angel and start a watch. Six hour shifts between you, Logan, Angel, Colossus, and myself.”  
  
Bishop sighed, his fingertips biting into the back of the chair he’d been strangling for the last several seconds.  
  
“I already know where they are and what they want.”  
  
“I’m not taking your word for it,” Storm snapped. “You can help us or get the hell out of our way. But you’re not to leave this mansion.”  
  
“I’m not one of your toy soldiers,” Bishop shot back.  
  
She moved around the table, standing toe to toe with him again. Damn. She reminded him of his mother so much that he wanted to look away like a chastised child.  
  
“I may believe you’re from the future; I may even want to help you.” Her tone was scathing. “But I will never condone killing without cause. You can’t condemn someone for something they _might_ do.”  
  
“He’ll do it.”  
  
“The future isn’t set in stone,” she replied quietly. “You, of all people, should know that.”  
  
With that, she faced the others, her leadership role reaffirmed. Bishop inwardly raged, knowing it was going to cost them for delay.  
  
“You have your orders.” She shooed the X-Men out of the room. “Logan, perimeter check.”  
  
“You got it.”  
  
Ororo blinked as he left the room. She pointed the way he had gone somewhat dazedly, glancing at Bishop as the others filed out.   
  
“Did he just…not argue with me?”  
  
Bishop’s only reply with a knowing smirk. All right, so they had potential. That was something, at least.  
  
  
~**~  
  
  
After checking the perimeter once the children were in bed, Logan ensured Angel was on watch in the security alcove, monitoring all of the screens from the hundreds of cameras placed all over the grounds. The day had been long, but Warren was fanatical about his job here at Xavier’s. The kid was best for the graveyard shift.  
  
Finding himself wide-awake, Logan made his way through the quiet mansion, deciding to give the new pool table a run for it’s felt. He closed the soundproofed doors, effectively locking in any noises so that he wouldn’t wake the children.  
  
If someone had told him two years ago that something like that would concern him, he would have laughed in their faces. The Wolverine taking care of children.  
  
He switched on the stereo equipment to the local country station, nodding in approval to the tune that wafted from the speakers built into the walls. The room was one of his favorites in the mansion. Though it was a game room, complete with a television and every video gaming console known to man, there was something homey about it.  
  
The polished wood furniture had chips and dents from years of abusive children; plush green cushions were faded and worn. There was a foosball table, one for ping-pong, a chessboard, and various other games to keep teenagers occupied.  
  
A hole-ridden dartboard was placed along the back wall, the standing line a few feet away. Storm’s choice for a new billiard table lay between, calling to Logan like siren to sailor. The woman had taste, he’d give her that much.  
  
Strong, dark cherry wood flanked the deep emerald felt. Curved legs and carved feet propped up the beautiful table, making it fit in the general splendor of Storm’s grand piano in the corner.  
  
“Now, that’s just sexy,” Logan said to himself with a feral grin.  
  
After lighting a cigar and popping open one of the beers he’d stashed in the small refrigerator, he set up the balls in the rack. Nodding his head in time with a classic Garth Brooks tune, Logan pinched the cigar between his teeth while selecting a pool cue. Much to his surprise, he found one of dark cherry that looked to match the table. Unlike the others waiting innocently against the wall, it bore a carved handle.  
  
His name was painted into the handle in elegant gold script. Surprised, Logan removed it from the holder, stroking the stylish piece almost reverently.  
  
“Thanks, Storm.” He chuckled in the quiet, shaking his head slowly.   
  
Settling the cue between his fingers, Logan leaned on the polished edge of the table. He lined up his shot expertly, pulling the cue between his fingers before slamming it against the white ball.  
  
 _Crack!_  
  
Music to his ears. Logan hummed to the music, taking another long drag from his cigar before calling himself a shot. Five ball, side pocket. _Crack!_  
  
Oh yeah, this was the life.   
  
“Should I leave you two alone?”  
  
Distracted by his pleasure at the table and Storm’s silent gift, he hadn’t smelled her coming nor heard the door slide open. Logan looked up from his position, finding her long, slender form over the edge of the table. Maybe he was slipping, getting soft. Why didn’t that bother him?  
  
To his surprise, she was smiling at him, leaning in the doorway. He gave her a grin, smacking the pool balls so that they scattered. He took a moment to look her up and down, memories from their…whatever that was earlier fluttering through his mind.  
  
She was dressed in her teacher’s clothes. Dark slacks tailored to her long legs, a white blouse that molded perfectly to her figure. He could see the edge of her boots under the hem of her pants and she’d pulled on her favorite belt, black leather with an “X” for a buckle.  
  
“This is nice,” he said, giving no indication as to whether he was speaking about the cue or the table.  
  
“I had it made,” she shrugged. “Charles always gave us a gift for our first teaching year. Thought I’d continue the tradition.”  
  
Touched, though he didn’t want to admit it, Logan grunted.  
  
Storm didn’t seem disturbed by this. She gently waved the thin stack of paper in her hands, coming fully into the room after closing the door to keep the music out of the main hall.   
  
“I got your security briefing.”  
  
Oh, hell, she wanted to bring that up _now_? He had been enjoying himself, too. Damn her for bringing it to him now. He didn’t want to fight with her tonight.  
  
“Yeah? Whatcha think?”  
  
As she moved closer, he caught a whiff of her perfume. Beneath the scent of fresh vanilla, he caught _her_ fragrance. Rain and snow. How the hell did she manage that? Logan knew, with his eyes closed, every scent in the mansion and every person therein. Mutations even gave off their own scent, alerting him when someone was using their powers.  
  
Storm’s was the faint linger of burning ozone. It would leak into the scent she always carried, reminding him of the way her eyes would swirl from dark to milky as she tapped into her power.   
  
Why was he spending so much time thinking about this? Well, if she didn’t smell so damn good, he wouldn’t have this problem.  
  
“Its interesting,” she said in a noncommittal tone. “And I enjoyed your budget breakdown.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Logan shrugged, making another shot before he straightened. “I wanted it idiot-proof.”  
  
“Shut up,” she replied almost absently. “I’m approving it.”  
  
 _Thunk!_ His cue sailed by the ball he was aiming at, dinging the felt as he stared up at the Headmistress in surprise. “Yeah?”  
  
“Mmm,” she hummed. Something about that throaty sound made anticipatory lust stab at his belly. Not a good sign.   
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because the money is there,” Storm answered. She halted her movement across the table from him, crossing her arms loosely under her breasts. The action made delicate cleavage peek out from the neckline of her shirt, which momentarily distracted Logan.  
  
“That ain’t the only reason, darlin’,” he said quickly. He folded his hands on the tip of his cue, the butt resting on the floor between his feet.  
  
“I _ain’t_ your _darlin’_.” The words were short, giving him the indication that she really didn’t like his endearment.  
  
They stared at one another across the table for a long moment. Tension filled the space between them and Logan was reminded of the incident in her bedroom. She’d felt so damn good in his arms. Waking with her wrapped up beside him, her telltale scent filling his nostrils, he realized very quickly that he’d slept through the night.  
  
No nightmares. No haunting screams. No Jean begging him to save her. Just Storm and her impossibly soft bed.   
  
That kind of thing was addicting.  
  
“I think Bishop isn’t telling us everything,” she said at length, breaking their uncomfortable silence.  
  
“He isn’t.” Logan nodded, actually agreeing with her.  
  
“I’m afraid for the children,” she admitted. “The last time there was an attack…”  
  
“I was here.” He interrupted. “I’m here now.”  
  
“I know,” Storm cleared her throat. “If you think these upgrades are warranted, I’ll call Forge in the morning.”  
  
He kept her gaze, unwilling to let her flinch away. “They’re warranted.”  
  
“Ok.”  
  
Storm broke their eye contact and turned as if to leave. Logan felt his body tense, as though some unconscious decision had been made to give chase. He paused when she stopped. The impulse to catch her wasn’t altogether alien; he’d felt it before. For _Jean_.  
  
“About this morning…” she began. Logan watched her toss her head slightly, shaking the choppy white locks from her eyes.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I trust it won’t happen again?” Dark eyes met his across the table, guarded and unsure.   
  
“I wouldn’t say that,” Logan replied before he knew what he was saying.  
  
Her guarded eyes narrowed. “Why not?”  
  
Logan shrugged one shoulder, not allowing her to break eye contact.   
  
”I’m not Jean.” Her tone was slightly defensive, that uncertainty coming back into her chocolate gaze.  
  
“Never said you were,” Logan answered quietly.  
  
Silence. They stared at one another again, neither seeming to find the words to say what was on their minds. It was so much easier when he could just irritate her. But he knew now. Oh, hell, he knew how she felt. He could still feel the echo of her responsive body on his skin; taste the impossible sweetness of her mouth.   
  
There was attraction, sure. He would never deny that Storm was beautiful, sexy. She had sensuality coming out of her ears. He’d been without a woman for a long, _long_ time. Was it just frustration? Hormones?   
  
Or was there something beneath the surface here? The very thought was terrifying and thrilling at once.  
  
“I can’t do this. I won’t do this.”  
  
She turned to flee, dropping his paperwork on the table. Logan dropped his cue onto the dark felt, coming around the table before he could tell himself to stay still. He should let her go. Everything told him to let her escape, to forget it ever happened.  
  
Apparently his body was having none of that. His hand caught her wrist as she reached the door, whipping her around so that she nearly fell into his chest.  
  
“Don’t,” she commanded hotly.  
  
“Can’t stop,” he whispered back, burying a hand in her hair.  
  
That hand fisted, bringing her up so he could cover her mouth with his. She melted like warm butter in his arms, parting her lips to invite him inside. Logan didn’t need to be told twice. He took her mouth violently, wanting to punish her for making him feel again.   
  
Damn it. He didn’t want this.  
  
Logan pulled away, fighting for breath and not daring to meet her eyes. His heart had begun to pound, his body tensing toward hers in a desperate attempt to get her hands on him. This wasn’t right. What the hell was he doing? He didn’t want to feel this again. The ache and pain that came from falling, from _feeling_.  
  
“Too late,” Storm murmured.  
  
This time, she kissed him. Logan inhaled through his nose, the damned scent of her making him harden even against his will. He groaned into her mouth when she wiggled against him, the delicious friction ending all thought then and there.  
  
He lifted her effortlessly into his arms, stumbling blindly backward. His legs hit the pool table and he turned them around, setting her on the edge. This put her in perfect range for all manner of naughty things. His hands fell to her thighs, squeezing harder than was probably necessary. Her nails dug into his shoulders, her tongue dueling viciously with his.  
  
When they broke away to breathe again, Logan found himself mesmerized by the dark fire in her eyes.  
  
“Yeah,” he swallowed hard, reaching up to cup her face. “Way too fuckin’ late.”  
  
~**~  
  
Bishop closed the door to the Rec Room, shaking his head. He shouldered the plasma rifle, running a hand over his face in distress.  
  
 _Come on,_ he thought with sorrow. _On the pool table?_  
  
He’d only stopped at hearing their voices on his way out. When his mother insisted she was not Jean, Bishop felt his heart stop. Had Father been in love with the doomed Phoenix? Why had they never told him?   
  
It was too much. Coming back here to a world that was so different from the one his cherished parents had always told him about was hard enough. Knowing his entire existence was based on hormones was even worse.   
  
He resolved to deal with it tomorrow. Bishop slipped out of the mansion on silent feet, fading into the night as Wolverine would teach him to do years from now.  
  
The mutant terrorist known as Pyro had a date with oblivion.


End file.
